Ch 3Analyzing the Marketing Environment

04/10/2015
Marketing Environment
Outside forces that affect marketing managements liability
to build and maintain successful relationships with target
customers
Microenvironment: Actors close to the company that affect its
ability to serve its customers
Macroenvironment: Larger societal forces that affect the
microenvironment
Marketing Environment
Company

Competitors
Context

Customers

Collaborators


Actors in the Microenvironment

1. The Company
Internal environment of the company that forms
interrelated groups
Creating Customer Value by groups working together
2. Suppliers
Provide the resources needed by the company to
produce its goods and services
Marketers must watch:
a. Supply shortages or delays
b. Labor strikes
c. Price trends of key inputs
3. Marketing Intermediaries
Help the company to promote, sell and distribute
its products to final buyers
a. Resellers
b. Physical distribution firms
c. Marketing services agencies
d. Financial intermediaries
4. Competitors
Marketers must gain strategic advantage by
positioning products strongly against competitors
No single strategy is best for all companies
5. Publics
Any group that has an actual or potential interest
in or impact on an organizations ability to achieve
its objectives
a. Financial
b. Media
c. Government
d. Citizen action, local, general and internal
6. Customers

Five types of customer markets

a. Consumer Market
b. Business Market
c. Reseller Marker
d. Government Market
e. International Market
Major Forces in the Companys Macroenvironment

1. Demographic Environment
Study of human populations in terms of size, density,
location, age, gender, race, occupation and other stats
Marketers analyze:
o Changing age and family structures
o Geographical population shifts
o Educational characteristics
o Population diversity
2. Economic Environment
Economic factors that affect consumer purchasing power
and spending patterns:
o Industrial economies
o Subsistence economies
o Developing economies
Changes in consumer spending
Differences in income distribution
3. Natural Environment
Physical environment and natural resources needed as
inputs by marketers or affected by marketing activities
Environmental sustainability concerns have grown steadily
over past three decades
Trends:
o Shortage of raw materials

o Increased pollution
o Increased government intervention
4. Technological Environment
New technologies create new markets and opportunities
o Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is technology
to track products through various points in the
distribution channel
Government agencies investigate and ban potentially unsafe
products
5. Political Environment
Forces that influence and limit various organizations and
individuals in a society
o Laws, government agencies, and pressure groups
Goals of enacting business legislation:
Protect companies from each other
Protect consumers from unfair business practices
Protect the interests of society against unrestrained
business behavior
6. Cultural Environment
Institutions and other forces that affect societys basic
values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors
o Society shapes peoples values and beliefs
o Cultural characteristics that affect marketing decision making:
Persistence of cultural values
Shifts in secondary cultural values
Major U.S. Legislation Affecting Marketing (Political Environment)
Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
o Prohibits monopolies and activities that restrain trade or
competition in interstate commerce
Federal Food and Drug Act (1906) FDA
o Forbids the manufacture or sale of adulterated or fraudulently
labeled foods and drugs
Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) FTC
o Monitors and remedies unfair trade methods
Socially Responsible Behavior
Socially responsible companies actively seek out ways to
protect the long-run interests of consumers and the
environment
Companies develop policies, guidelines, and other responses to
complex social responsibility issues
Cause-Related Marketing
Used by companies to:

o Exercise their social responsibility

o Build more positive images
Primary form of corporate giving
ControversyStrategy for selling more than a strategy for giving
Responding to the Marketing Environment
Reactive firms passively accept the marketing environment and do
not try to change it
Proactive firms develop strategies to change the environment
o They take aggressive actions to affect the publics and force in
their marketing environment
Learning Objectives
Describe the environmental forces that affect the companys ability
to serve its customers.
Explain how changes in the demographic and economic
environments affect marketing decisions.
Identify the major trends in the firms natural and technological
environments.
Explain the key changes in the political and cultural environments.
Discuss how companies can react to the marketing environment.