Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Since it's your homework assignment, why don't you share your thinking with us first?

We don't do homework here. Besides, your professor wants YOUR opinion, not ours.

Even with the negative statements above, it is a valid question. After all, it's in the "student questions" section. It's where students ask questions - and expect answers.

Your statement "marketing is designed to create demand for products or services consumers do not want." is putting the cart before the horse. What's more, many marketing agencies actually rely on this very model for their existence. That doesn't mean it's right, it just means that in the current economy it is possible.

The very real point of marketing is firstly to establish if there is a market at all. This need not be expensive and it will give conclusive evidence for its presence - or not. This is very different from "creating a demand". After all, there are many people who "have had this brilliant idea" and want to tell the world - only they now have a warehouse full of this stuff that nobody wants. Establishing that there is a demand is not creating one - which is in itself the stuff of philosophy (so don't start me!).

Having established that there is a demand, marketing can be then refined to determine what sort of demand there is and how dynamic it is. That way you can tailor your production process to the reality of the situation you have discovered. One may refine the marketing further to see if any gaps have been missed.

Does this help?

Utter nonsense.