Needs, Wants, and Demands

Am i kidding?

This is marketing, right?

Why do we need to know primary school word definitions in order to learn Marketing?

This was the obvious question that came to my mind when going through learning meterials. I did some digging and found out why do we need to know exactly that!

The times are changing rapidly and so is the way people are thinking. Therefore in order to survive those changes marketing has to be evolved accordingly with that.

The old definition of marketing was "making a sale - or telling and selling".

But the new refined definition of marketing is "satisfying customer needs".

Moving forward with the new definition, in order to understand Customer Needs we need to know the definitions of the words Needs, Wants, and Demands. Because although they sound similar at a glance there are very different.

So what do you mean by a need?

This is what you get when you Google it!

"require (something) because it is essential or very important rather than just desirable."

So a person actually requires it for a core function to work.

For example food. - Without food you cannot live therefore it is a basic requirement or a need.

There are several types of needs and they are,

• Physical Needs - food, clothing, water, etc.
• Social Needs - belonging, affection
• Induvidual Needs - learning, knowledge, self-expression

Then there are wants, and what a Want is the way a need is formed for an individual person or a culture.

For example clothing is a basic need, and fashionable clothing is a want derived out of that basic need.