Translating into chinese. What Is Marketing? • Marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is “meeting needs profitably”. When eBay recognized that people were unable to locate some of the items they desired most and created an online auction clearinghouse or when IKEA noticed that people wanted good furniture at a substantially lower price and created knock-down furniture, they demonstrated marketing savvy and turned a private or social need into a profitable business opportunity.