Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying cust

Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customers\' needs and wants. Critics, however, maintain that marketing goes beyond that and creates needs and wants that did not exist before. They feel marketers encourage consumers to spend more money than they should on goods and services they do not really need. Take a position: Marketing shapes consumer needs and wants versus marketing merely reflects the needs and wants of customers

Solution

In my view, Marketing shapes consumer needs and wants. Consumers are often confused between their needs and wants. If marketing merely reflects what consumers’ needs and wants then the manufacturers would have simply manufactured products to fulfill them only. But that doesn’t happen. Manufactures come up with new products and with new features and market them which makes consumer realize that these products are also required for them in one or other way. One of the biggest example for this is the cellphone. Just three decades back, very few people feel that they need a cell phone. If marketers would have simply followed this information, then cell phone would not have been this much popular. Instead over the years marketers marketed cell phone as an important tool for communication and now they are marketing it with all kinds of features like digital camera, intermet, MP3 etc. Marketers stimulated this need and hence, I say that Marketing shapes consumer needs and wants.