What is Marketing? (Kotler)

AMA definition of marketing
Pete
The American Marketing Association gives the following definition of marketing:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
So even AMA missed the point by Kotler, since their definition starts with creating the offerings, not with understanding the needs...

Marketing
Morwan
I understand marketing is how to know customers needs.

Marketing and Needs
Anthony Nair
The mother science of marketing is customer "NEEDS".

Emotions and Marketing
Dr.Hemjith
All marketing is now focussed on " emotions". Our emotions have already decided before our cognition as to what is good for us.

3 Key Verbs in the Defintion of Marketing
Phil
Kotler is right to argue that understanding or discerning the customer needs is the starting point. I think however the following definition is most balanced:
Marketing is the business process (and organization, and discipline) which discerns customers' wants (or emotions), focusing on a product or service to fulfill those wants, and attempting to move the consumers toward the products or services offered.
Key verbs in defining marketing are: discerning ... focusing ... attempting.

Marketing Definition by Kotler
Dashrath Prasad
The definition given by Kotler is perfect and it is covering all the aspects of marketing. So I am in favour of Kotler.

Marketing definition
Mick Huckerby
It may be semantics - but if marketing is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs, the real customer is the 'need' and anything that sits between 'it' and the 'solution' can only tend to confuse and delay.

Social Marketing
Kabir Hamisu Kura
I am quite in support of Kotler's Definition when considering marketing from commercial point of view. What of Social Marketing? Needs are identified and offerings (services/information) are made with the aim of satisfying those needs eg. behavior change, buying in to government programs etc. Here profits are not key to providers but rather benefits to clients and citizens.

Marketing is a Religion
Wael seifeldin
Marketing, it is a "religion" to be defined by the experts to the others in order to understand the rules...and act upon it.

The Shortest Definition of Marketing by Kotler
Bena Dookie-Shah
Kotler, in Marketing Management, 11th Edition, describes what is referred to as the shortest definition of marketing, that is, "meeting needs profitably". Some marketeers focus heavily on advertizing and communication to sway or influence 'needs' but if they focus on creating product awareness and don't create a product that is, or will be needed (know what to make), the chance that it will be successful is slim and the product may become a fad and then fade or simply fade.

Kotler's Definition of Marketing lacks Competition
Jamal Ghamari
I think Kotler's definition of marketing disregards competition. If this aspect were incorporated into the definition, it would be perfect.

What is Marketing
AbdulAzizMomand
Marketing is a total system of business which is to design, price, promote and distribute needs-satisfying products to target markets in order to achieve organizational objectives. So the most important part in the marketing process is to know the customer needs and know what they want in return for their money.

Central Idea of Marketing
Evelyn Mendoza
The central idea of marketing is that a firm or entity will create something of value to one or more customers, who has the ability or capability to buy the product.

What is Marketing?
Roland Rahal, Manager, Syria, Member
In simple words, marketing is the company's customer manufacturing department. Regardless strategies, tactics, and techniques used in marketing, marketing is the function within a company that profits the company and delights a customer.

Marketing
Kip Piper, Member
Besides all the text book and academic descriptions of marketing, it seems in my simple mind that marketing is: creating demand where there isn't any, finding demand where there is, and then finding the supply to fill the demand.
Another definition is: ensuring supply and demand never reach equilibrium, which of course it never will.

What is Marketing in India
VENKATESH, Manager, India, Member
In one of the Indian languages, kannada, maro means "to sell" and katte means "platform". So in that language marketing would mean: a platform to sell/exchange.
Now the question is how much you understand the needs of the customers and what you can do fulfill the need in a way that is convenient to the customer and is affordable.
Marketing is a science in so far as we metrics to calculate certain aspects of consumer behaviour. Its a art in as far as we use our judgement to unravel.

Marketing Defined. what is Is, and what it is Not
Fred Page, Partner, United States, Member
Marketing is a way of doing business centered on finding out what the customer wants and delivering it at a profit.
It is not a department, and it is not merely sales under another name.
As a way of doing business it becomes the brand, impacting the way people feel about the company, its people, its products, its ethics and its soul.
It is at once a science and an art requiring an open mind to endless possibilities of potentials and needs and a hunger to satisfy them at an unassailable level.
It requires a strategic outlook and the ability to translate that outlook into tactics, all-the-while measuring the consequences of every tactic in every segment and the possible reactions of competitors along with what counteractions must then follow along with their consequences, and so-on.

Marketing is What the Consumer Needs
VENKATESH, Manager, India, Member
Consumer needs since the times of your ancestors have been the same. The need to move, the need to communicate, the need to till the land, the need for energy and all that.
What technology has added is convenience and comfort. To this add safety.
So whatever your offering is we need to see how useful is it for the consumer from the angles of Convenience, Comfort and Safety.
Of course the product needs to be affordable .

Marketing Consists of Two Words
Marcel Wiedenbrugge, Consultant, Netherlands, Member
The word marketing consists of two words: to market and to get. Literally marketing is about getting the market. In order to 'get' the market, you have to understand the wants and needs of your (future) customers. So Kotler was and still is right.

6 Marketing Insights from Kids
Arun Rao, Manager, India, Member
As marketing professionals, we take our lives a wee bit seriously and we get enamoured with glossy presentations, tons of data on spreadsheets and exhaustive talking points, forgetting in the heat of the process the fundamentals of what we are supposed to do in the first place
In very simple words, the purpose of all marketing is to help connect people through a transactional relationship, in a manner that they feel happy about doing so. The buyer feels happy about having bought, the seller feels happy about having sold. If both continue feeling happy about this, the relationship will only grow. Read more in the article "6 Marketing Insights From Kids" by Rajeev Nagi.