MARKETING AND INNOVATION: YOUNG PEOPLE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS NEW PRODUCTS

This paper explores the perceptions of young students, who are training in the field of economics, to the very new products and outlines the role that marketing plays in bringing to market products based on innovative technologies. The study is conducted in Romania and tries to highlight Romanian specific features about the relationship between marketing and innovation. The goal is to outline in a clear and actual image of young people thoughts about new technologies insertion on the market. The pursued objectives are: motivation investigation of option for new products; determining predisposition to the radical or incremental innovations, assessing perceptions of the link between marketing and innovation. Research have been made in this field on various areas of activity. At the level of the European Community there are several organizations which activate in the field of innovation research. Eurobarometer through its subdivision Innobarometer brings in the attention of the public on a regular basis, through a series of publications, the results of researches undertaken from the business perspective, and are concerning all areas of action. Research aims to identify the impact that new technologies have on the consumers most open to innovation. This exploratory research is based on a direct gathering of information, using an online questionnaire. Data are processed using SPSS software package, and the results show the type and nature of links between variables to be examined by applying bivariate and multivariate correlation tests. Analysis report provides descriptive, easy to follow, for all the situations covered and investigated in the questionnaire. The results show a clear output of the relationship between compromises that those open to using new technologies are making to obtain superior advantages from the newest products on the market. Research carried out by the author being the first one in this area, only manages to outline the general framework of marketing in the process of bringing new innovations to market. Other research focused on several areas of participants in the process of bringing innovations to market, like inventors, distributors, intermediaries and final consumers, will be undertaken in the future. The study bring into the attention of all participants in economic exchanges that marketing tools can be used to accelerate or to stop different directions of development. Marketing strategies and techniques can be implemented centrally in the economic environment of a country or communities, with immediate impact in the development (subject to certain priorities) of the society as a whole. Marketing can facilitate all socio-economic activities, starting from helping people interested in obtaining patents, attract their results into the economic cycle (production), going through transfer of the products to consumers (distribution), continuing to explain and inform all parties involved (promotion) and ending with the recording and collection of profits (price) of any kind (tangible or intangible). Although the literature treats for a long time and in various ways the relationship between marketing and innovation, research on this direction in Romania are relatively few undertaken. Identification and assessment of consumer perceptions is an important step in any development process, especially in processes with a high innovative component, and this study tries to highlight Romanian characteristics of the relationship between marketing and innovation