Trends in the Marketing Development within the Context of the Knowledge Based Economy

Nowadays, human society is passing through a new stage called knowledge based economy. This concept is reflected in a specific way in the marketing theory. We know that marketing, as a science, appeared as an answer to the development of Economy. The Romanian marketing school places at the origins of marketing the social-economic dynamism. From this point of view, we believe that the science of marketing itself an element that explains knowledge based economy. However, with the premises of this new economy, the traditional marketing concept has a lot of limits, being based on a market that is permanently divided. This process creates a hyper-segmented market and its effects exceed the expansion of the market. Modern marketing (customer orientated marketing and relationship marketing) partially solved this new situation. Philip Kotler and Fernando Trias de Bes have studied this situation in its complexity and pro-posed us a new concept, called lateral marketing. It defines a marketing process that is opposite to the classical process. It doesn't exclude the market as the starting and ending point of the process, but places in its center creation and innovation as very important instruments of marketing. Considering that creation and innovation are the central elements of knowledge-based economy, we believe that lateral marketing is one of its instruments.