Quality or Marketing?

Quality or Marketing?

6 people are having a discussion on the topic (Shankar, Sweta, Damini, Vivek, Vidya, Vignesh).

Group Discussion Starts

Damini: Good afternoon everyone! It’s nice to meet you all once again. Today we got an interesting topic to discuss -“Quality or Marketing?” Nowadays Marketing has turned into a root word for the corporate people who look to bring out new products and services on customers. But they never mind whether proper homework is being done. Homework in the sense, whether they work on the quality of the product or not?

Vidya: Yes Damini. You are right. Crafty advertisements that target users have come about to make up for quality along with quantity. In order to capture the attention of people, large number of media, print and audio visual advertisements is being used to channelize the customer’s interests. But the question that arises out is that how far those marketing tactics actually get translated into record sales.

Vignesh: I agree with this point. There was a research regarding tobacco smoking. The researchers claimed tobacco advertisements work as organisations aim their messages at youngsters, who are in particular persuadable to subtle meanings, such as small hints that it is mostly related to masculinity in case of males and to appeal and freedom in case of girls.

Damini: To add to your point, it is estimated that the 2 Billion dollars’ worth cosmetic industry has found a boon in men’s segment. The Beauty product usage by men has increased drastically to 80% in few years. The main reason is stated as the attraction of men towards anti-aging, fairness segments of the products. The sentiments of people are being lured by attractive advertisements of the company.

Shankar: But we should not miss an important point here. If you know your product has a flaw, you can even sell it through flawless advertisements. This makes the business to thrive but the situation of customer needs to be considered. It is well known that every fairness cream promises the impossible thing. Yet customers are being attracted towards it because of the strength of the pictures that are being displayed.

Sweta: I agree with you Shankar. But do you really think that they could maintain their customer base with marketing alone. No it is not possible, if the product needs to retain with people, quality needs to come to the picture only if the product has the desired quality and if it meets the requirements with standards, it will attract buyers.

Damini: Yes Sweta. We need to understand the fact that the list that contains the fortune companies has Amazon, Google, Apple in the top three places. It was not because of their marketing strategy but it’s because of their commitment towards quality.

Vivek: True. Quality is the ultimate consideration here. As Shankar said flawed products are being marketed, if people gets to know the problem with the quality then marketing will not help. Only for one times the sales could be made with great promotion. Even negative impact would be created through word of mouth, if the quality of the product is below standards.

Vignesh: Though quality needs to be considered, but for a product to take a stage on the market, marketing is needed. Without having the product in the market in first place, worrying about the quality is of no use. Nowadays any product is considered only as good or either bad based on the appeal and strength of marketing campaign.

Vidya: Yes Vignesh. I agree with you. Sales are not possible if there is no marketing. People should be made aware of the product or service and they should get to know about the details of the various features and merits. Adding to Shankar’s point here, large amount of people consume caffeine high energy drinks even after knowing that they lead to destruction of brain cells. Here the quality didn’t come to the picture rather effective marketing has played the business.

Damini: But I would say that if there is no quality, marketing is really hollow. Consumers can take the organisations to courts for making fake promises during marketing campaign. Marketing does not fulfil the needs of the customer base and it cannot counter the demands of the customer. There is no real meaning in favouring marketing.

Sweta: Great point Damini. If people found that the product is of poor quality they are well within their rights to demand compensation from the companies. This will directly harm the business and sales of the company. They can’t neglect quality considering only bringing the product on board.

Vivek: Yes I even have a fact to put forward. Everyone would know about the Volkswagen emission scandal. It is stated that 9 out of 10 drivers in England got affected by the diesel emissions from VW cars. They had claimed for compensation from the company and it increases the pressure on VW when it tries to recover from the crisis.

Vidya: But Vivek, people could point out such instances only during a rare case and that’s not often that happen. If this world has this amount of brands all over and still they succeed each other in certain way, it could be because of efficient marketing alone. If a business is thriving a lot in this place, it’s because of redundant marketing efforts that are being made from company’s side. Adding to this there are 51 Car manufacturers in this world and 22 FMCG organizations in India alone.

Shankar: Yes Vidya. You had made a valid point. India is now in hands of youngsters and we have this unemployment issue deteriorating our development further. Budding Entrepreneurs and their organisation are the best solutions for this concern. And if they need to emerge as a big organisation, marketing will play a huge role in the case. They completely rely on the marketing strategy to cover the people segment.

Vivek: But Shankar, quality should be the ultimate consideration for the required outcome of any service or product. But not in favour of that marketing is considered as the real standard on which a product’s success or failure is determined in the market.

Sweta: I agree with you all. So for any organisation to make a good progress, I feel both marketing and quality should go hand in hand. Even if either of the one fails, the company needs to suffer for the whole cause. Management of the organisation should consider both with equal priorities to win the hearts of the customers.