Abstract: In main stream literature, marketing is defined as to create superior customer value and to build profitable customer relationships. It seems that such a way of defining marketing can help enhance marketers’ status in the company. Contrary to expectation, it actually obscures functions of firm-level system and those of marketing system. Marketing as a sub-system of company, it creates value for customers by performing functions of connecting, matching and transacting. Among the three marketing functions, matching supply with demand is considered as the most important one. In this paper, we not only offer a new definition of marketing with matching as a core element, but also propose an integrated marketing framework which attempts to extend the extant dominant marketing paradigms.

Key words: Demand and Supply Matching, Marketing Functions, Definition of Marketing, Marketing Process, Marketing Knowledge Systems