Have you ever bought something and when you got home asked yourself " Do I really need this? ". Marketing nowadays has changed into something even better than it used to be and new strategies are luring more and more people into buying things, even if some tend to be unnecessary.

In the ever-evolving digital age, marketing has become a "playground" where A/B testing and other original strategies lead to success, but let's begin with what marketing really is. Philip Kotler defines it as " the art and science of creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit" which emphasizes the strategic aspect of advertising in identifying customer needs and attaching importance to them efficiently.

To have a clear picture of the term 'A/B testing', we can think, for instance, of sending two versions of an email to see which one generates more click-throughs - one with a red call-to-action button and another one with a yellow one. After the campaign ends the specialists analyze the results to see which color performed better in terms of user engagement. This way, they are able to optimize their campaigns based on the successful version. What can be seen in this example is that marketers pay attention to details and how the psychology of colors impacts the public and use this tool to promote their product. Every company has a representative chromatic range that has as a substrate a psychological background to reach the target audience, so all the advertisements, sites and campaigns use specific colors. As a result, consumers buy the products on offer and promoted with a certain packaging, most of the time driven by the emotion associated with the color. We should not form a negative idea about this approach, because marketing is an industry and, like any other, it aims to satisfy the needs and demands of the consumer society.

To understand better what marketing today really is and how we should change our consumer perspective, specialists in this topic have been asked to provide their perspective. Here is some insight from Ioan Tîrnăvean, a sales manager at Bardi Auto company, with more than 15 years experience in sales: " It is impossible not to be influenced to some extent by everything marketing means around us and what is promoted in the media, but we must distinguish between desire and need. Our choices must be based mainly on needs and the big question is - Do I really need this?- There are temptations everywhere around us, but it is exclusively up to us to make the right choices in the purchase decision. Nowadays, marketing and, implicitly, advertisments are constantly updated and are always in trend. The intense use of AI in this field makes it increasingly difficult for us to be masters of our decisions. In this context, the use of AI as a marketing tool represents a special advantage for advertising campaigns. Slowly, but surely, AI- powered marketing will make it harder and harder for us to make the right choices for ourselves. To reduce the influence of marketing in our purchase decision, we must be down to earth, aware of the reality of our needs. Therefore, there is also a certain satisfaction when we realize we made the right decision and not an impulsive one, which we later regret."

Technology and connectivity have transformed the way bussines engage with consumers. Image: Unsplash. Image: Image: Unsplash.

As we navigate our daily routines, it becomes clear that marketing plays a significant role in shaping our choices and preferences. By trying to understand the impact of marketing strategies, we can better comprehend how products and services are outlined to meet our desires and needs, in the end highlighting the universal nature of marketing in our daily life.