Originally Posted by fms

Well, you may have noticed that your article talks about objective vs. subjective statements. Your "distinction between organic and marketing-induced "needs" is not one I'd care to make" is an example of a subjective statement.

Objectively, the distinction is present though:

Organic needs do not require any additional expenditures to create. They already exist and just wait to be satisfied.

Marketing-induced "needs" (notice quotes) come at a price required to create them. This price may sometimes be very steep and can easily exceed the revenues expected from satisfying such induced "need".

To consider an example, let us say I have a great vision of an urinal that also works as a drinking fountain. Let us further assume that I somehow resolved the obvious sanitary issues with such a device. How much, in your opinion, will it cost me to induce a need for such a device in public? Do you think I will be able to cover my marketing expenditures by selling such devices?

Originally Posted by Texrat

Um... I don't see that (of course I have a different perspective). Even Nokia's resources aren't infinite. And there's a limit to how thin any organization can and should spread itself before becoming ineffective.

Resources allocated to a project tend to be proportionate to its perceived and/or current market. Hopefully the maemo group is growing appropriately. But *if* the functionality we're talking about is not in the current scope, for whatever reason, then it's not going to happen unless management changes that... and user insistence, in large enough scale, could make a difference.

Anyway, I'd rather we get the necessary infrastructure in place and let you guys create the ideal PIM.

Originally Posted by Benson

Marketing costs money, but increases the quantity or price you can sell at. If it doesn't increase it enough to cover the marketing costs, then you wouldn't do it, but that's no basis for a distinction of need types, since the marketing costs and gains are variable.

Does any product of which at least one person would buy at least one, with no marketing, supply an organic need?

Or does any product which can gain an additional sale by marketing supply a marketing-induced need?

I see no other ways to draw a distinction, except drawing arbitrary thresholds in the continuum between those. (Such thresholds are difficult to defend objectively.)

And it seems to me that the devices you're discussing (phones and tablets) are solidly in the middle.

Originally Posted by iamthewalrus

I think the distinction between 'organic' and 'marketing induced' needs is kind of a forced one. What about 'culture-induced' needs?

The point is that beyond food, clothes and shelter all needs are elastic.

At some point (price, availability, coolness) people are willing to trade one need for the other. You can say that you 'need' a car or a cellphone, but that changes as soon as telepathy and teleporting comes along, or when living in small self-sufficient communities becomes the new thing.

Originally Posted by fms

But it is such a basis. With organic needs, you do not spend money trying to induce a need. With induced needs you do spend the money, often not knowing for sure if your efforts will succeed. Money - no money. See the difference?

Do not mistake marketing to advertise a product with marketing to induce a previously non-existent need in a product. These are two separate categories. The first one you always spend money one but the second one, as I said, is optional, unreliable, and often more costly. Remember, you are not informing potential customers of your goods but kinda brainwashing them. Mind control comes at a price

The threshold between $0 and $n>0 is hardly "arbitrary". You can test my statement by visiting a store without your wallet.

Correct, although it does depend on the device. A Nokia N95, for example, is purely a "lifestyle" device. Its utility to users exists solely in the mind of Nokia marketing department. Devices like Nokia E61 or E70 are mostly satisfying existing needs though.

As far as internet tablets go, they do appear to be utility devices although Nokia insists on them being "lifestyle" devices for some reason, and this is exactly why you see so many people in these forums complaining about lacking a PIM, an office suite, etc. I can only guess why tablets are marketed this way. Maybe because they are marketed under N-series label and N-series are considered "lifestyle".

Originally Posted by Benson

Except perhaps for singular exceptions (like urinal-drinking fountains) most people would rather have any given product than not, if there were no costs.

That is, they place some value on it; or, it fulfills some need of theirs.

How do you distinguish between these two types of marketing?

Any device's utility exists in the mind of the users -- that's why they buy it. If they discounted it to $5, they couldn't produce fast enough to keep them on the shelves.

Originally Posted by fms

Umgh... no, not really, definitely not all people and not any product. The reality is not as simple as your macroeconomics book.

People only place value on a good if it either fulfills their need or can be exchanged for other goods (i.e. can be used to conserve value).

In one case, you inform people of a good they can use to take care of their existing need. In another case, you are trying to tell people they have a certain need they do not know of. The second case is much more risky and uncertain.

Not necessarily. If a good does not satisfy any existing need (organic or artifically induced) and cannot be used to store value (i.e. can't be resold or exchanged later), it has no value. Period.