Half past twelve at Market Square: Every weekday at half past twelve, the queue at the Market Square shop changes. The morning's loaf buyers have gone, and office workers ask Kofi, the shop manager, for something to eat at their desks.
A few years ago Lena's Bakery sold no lunches. Customers kept asking, so it started. In 2025 lunches brought in $160,000 of the bakery's $1.6 million of sales.
Nobody put up a poster to make that happen. Someone noticed what customers wanted, and the bakery changed what it sold to meet it. That is the heart of marketing: finding out what customers want and meeting those wants in a way that makes a profit.
What marketing covers at the bakery
Find out what people want
Kofi hears the lunch requests every day. Counting, asking and listening to customers tells the bakery what they need and want.
Decide what to offer
Sandwiches and soup at lunchtime, the $3 loaf in the morning. What the bakery sells follows from what its customers want.
Set a price people will pay
A lunch has to cost no more than office workers will pay and still leave a profit once the bread, the fillings and the staff time are paid for.
Reach the customer
The lunches are in the window by noon and on the board outside, where office workers walk past. Customers have to know about a product and be able to get it.
Marketing is not just advertising: Advertising is telling people about a product: the board outside, a post online. It is one small part of marketing.
Marketing starts earlier, with the question of what customers want, and runs through what is sold, at what price and where. Selling is persuading people to buy what you already have; marketing decides what you should have in the first place.
Every business has to decide where that thinking starts: with the product it is proud of, or with the customer's answer. At Lena's Bakery, Priti, the head baker, and Marco, Lena's fellow director, disagree about exactly that.
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Priti's plan for Station Road: Lena's Bakery is planning a fourth shop, on Station Road. Priti knows exactly what it should sell: one loaf, made the best way she knows.
A sourdough risen slowly for 48 hours, baked from Valley Grain flour, in one size only. No sliced loaves, no sandwiches, no soup. 'If the bread is good enough, people will cross town for it.'
Priti is describing product orientation: the business puts its attention and its resources into the product itself, making it as good or as special as it can. It decides what to make from what it does best, not from what customers ask for, and then looks for people who want it. How many it sells, and what is in fashion, come second.
What it looks like (features)
- The product comes first: its quality or its difference is the main aim
- Decisions start inside the business, from what it makes best
- Little or no asking of customers before the product is made
- Not led by fashions or by how many it will sell
What it gains (advantages)
- A high-quality or unusual product that stands out from its rivals
- It can be first with something new, before any rival (first-mover advantage)
- No time or money spent asking customers before it starts
- Customers who value quality may pay more for it
What it risks (drawbacks)
- It may make something too few customers want
- Customers who want something else are turned away, and their orders are lost
- Rivals win the customers it ignores
- If tastes change, it may be the last to notice
Where the turned-away customer goes: Under Priti's plan, a commuter who asks for a sliced loaf for the week's sandwiches hears no. She does not go without: she walks to Goldcrust's bakery near Market Square, which sells cheaper sliced loaves.
That is the drawback in one scene. The sale is not lost to nobody. It goes to a rival.
The advantage is just as real. No other bakery in town makes a loaf like Priti's, and the bakery could have it on the shelf within weeks, before any rival thinks of it. Her skill, not a survey, is what makes it special.
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Marco asks first: Marco will not sign the Station Road lease on a hunch. Every weekday for two weeks he stands outside the empty shop from seven to nine and from twelve to two, and asks people walking past one question: what would you buy here?
He asks 400 people. Their answers decide what goes on the shelves.
| What they would buy | People | Share of the 400 |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast or lunch to take away | 248 | 62% |
| A special loaf to take home | 84 | 21% |
| Nothing: they would walk past | 68 | 17% |
Marco is describing market orientation: the business first finds out what customers need and want, then designs, makes and delivers products to match. Asking customers (market research) comes before the product, and it guides what is made, what it costs and where it is sold.
What it looks like (features)
- Relies on asking customers before deciding what to make and at what price
- Develops the products customers say they want
- Focuses on products that will sell, not on new ideas for their own sake
- Looks outward at the market and builds customers' needs into the product
What it gains (advantages)
- Less risk: it knows there are buyers before it spends
- Satisfied customers come back, so sales are steadier
- It notices early when tastes change and can adapt
- It can offer what its rivals are not offering
What it risks (drawbacks)
- Asking customers costs time and money before anything is sold
- Customers can only ask for what they already know, so new ideas are missed
- Chasing every request can spread staff and money thin
- Rivals can ask the same questions and offer the same things
What the survey cannot tell Marco: Not one of the 400 asked for a loaf risen for 48 hours, because none of them had tasted one. Customers answer from what they already know, so a survey rarely invents anything new.
And the answers were not free: ten weekdays at four hours a day is 40 hours of a director's time before a single sandwich is sold.
Lena has to choose. Priti offers a loaf no one else in town can match; Marco offers what 248 of 400 passers-by said they would buy. Set side by side, the two approaches are mirror images.
| Product orientation (Priti's plan) | Market orientation (Marco's plan) | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts with | The product: the best loaf Priti can bake | The customer: what the 400 said they would buy |
| Asking customers | Little or none before the product is made | First, and it guides every decision |
| Looks | Inward, at what the business does best | Outward, at the market |
| Main strength | A high-quality, unusual product that can be first | Lower risk, because the buyers are known in advance |
| Main risk | Too few want it, and rivals take the customers it turns away | Research costs time and money, and it can miss what nobody has imagined yet |
When each one makes sense: Starting with the product suits a business whose product is the reason people buy: a new invention customers cannot yet ask for, or a craft where quality is everything. It also suits a business racing to be first.
Starting with the customer suits a crowded market, where rivals are one street away and tastes change quickly. Station Road, next to the trains and a short walk from Goldcrust, is that kind of market.
Lena's decision
- Station Road opens as a breakfast and lunch shop. 62% of the people Marco asked want food to take away; only 21% want a special loaf.
- Priti's loaf goes on the shelf as one special product. She bakes it her way, and the shop sells it beside the sandwiches.
- Mixing the two is common. Many businesses listen to customers about what to sell and still keep one product made the way they know best.
Neither is always right: Product orientation bets on the product being good enough to find its buyers. Market orientation bets on the customers' answers.
Which bet is better depends on the business and its market, so a good answer says which approach fits this business, and why.
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How this comes up: Short questions first: state two features of a market-orientated business, for two marks; or describe one feature of a product-orientated business, for two, which means name it and say what it looks like in practice.
Then the case: explain one advantage and one disadvantage for a named business of being product-orientated, for four. The case gives you the facts to use: what the business made, how fast, and whom it turned away.
The four-mark pattern
- Name the advantage. A product-orientated business can put everything into one high-quality product and get it to market quickly, ahead of its rivals.
- Show it in the case. Priti's 48-hour loaf could be on the Station Road shelf within weeks, and no other bakery in town makes one like it.
- Name the disadvantage. By ignoring what customers ask for, it may make something too few want and lose the orders it turns away.
- Show it in the case. Commuters who want sliced loaves or lunch are sent away, and Goldcrust's bakery near Market Square sells cheaper sliced loaves.
Two traps: Swapping the two approaches. 'It lowers risk because it knows what customers want' is an advantage of market orientation. Given for product orientation, it answers a different question.
No case, no second mark. 'It can make a high-quality product' is one mark. Add the 48 hours, the Valley Grain flour or the commuters sent away, and it is two.
Explain one advantage and one disadvantage for Lena's Bakery of running the Station Road shop as a product-orientated business.
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