Resolving the jeopardies of consumer demand: revisiting demarketing concepts

Demarketing is a way for managers to cope with excess and/or undesirable demand for their products or services. In this article, we revisit the original framework and modify the classification scheme of demarketing concepts introduced by Kotler and Levy to reflect more contemporary issues. Previously, general demarketing topics addressed ways to curb excess demand due to temporary shortages, chronic overpopularity, and product elimination–—all from a microenvironmental perspective. Herein, we add macroenvironmental concepts of protective demarketing and preventive demarketing. Formerly, selective demarketing addressed either undesirable or unprofitable consumption of the legitimate product/service; today, however, many firms across several sectors are fighting against the undesirable consumption of illegitimate products/services, such as pirated and counterfeit goods. We thus introduce the notion of combative demarketing. We conducted personal interviews with several industry experts to provide insight regarding current demarketing tools. Our discussions highlighted various measures that managers can employ to manage consumer demand, including using smaller packaging to reduce sugar/fat content, increasing the price of water, limiting visitor access to national parks, and educating consumers to identify counterfeit goods.