In Response to Christine Sullivan...

Do you think too much of consumers money is spent on marketing?

Yes. I do believe that too much of consumers money is spent on marketing. I believe that if less was spent on marketing the product or service, it could be less expensive, and therefore attract consumers on it own. The concept of marketing is very important, products and services need to be known so that people will want them. But I think that marketing on a smaller scale would be a way to compromise, then companies can get their product or service out there, but they will save money so they can charge less and therefore attract even more customers. It only takes a dollar to make a CD, but they cost around $20 a piece. The reason they are so outrageously expensive is because of marketing costs. The artists needs to be marketed in order to have people want to buy their music. If marketing costs were cut on items such as CD's consumers would be more willing to buy a CD because it wouldn't be so expensive. As Christine said, 50-60% of consumers dollars go to marketing costs. Which means that if marketing was scaled down, consumers would save money, prompting them to buy more products, because they saved that extra money. Marketing is absolutely an important concept, however it is too costly to consumers and should be downsized to some extent.

If you owned a business would you rather spend a lot of money on marketing, or cut the cost of your product or service so that it is more appealing to the consumer?