How should marketers respond to the changes taking place in the environment?

1. Name and briefly describe the elements of an organization’s microenvironment and discuss how they affect marketing?

Answer:

The microenvironment consists of the actors close to the company that affect its ability to serve its customers—the company, suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customer markets, competitors, and publics. In designing marketing plans, marketing management takes other company groups into account—groups such as top management, finance, research and development (R&D), purchasing, operations, and accounting. All of these interrelated groups form the internal environment. Suppliers form an important link in the company’s overall customer value delivery network. They provide the resources needed by the company to produce its goods and services. Marketing intermediaries help the company promote, sell, and distribute its products to final buyers. They include resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing services agencies, and financial intermediaries.

The marketing concept states that, to be successful, a company must provide greater customer value and satisfaction than its competitors do. Thus, marketers must do more than simply adapt to the needs of target consumers. They also must gain strategic advantage by positioning their offerings strongly against competitors’ offerings in the minds of consumers. The company’s marketing environment also includes various publics. A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on an organization’s ability to achieve its objectives. We can identify seven types of publics: financial, media, government, citizen-action groups, local publics, general public, and internal public. Finally, customers are the most important actors in the company’s microenvironment. The aim of the entire value delivery network is to serve target customers and create strong relationships with them.

1. What is demography and why is it so important for marketers?

Answer:

Demography is the study of human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race, occupation, and other statistics. The demographic environment is of major interest to marketers because it involves people, and people make up markets. The world’s large and highly diverse population poses both opportunities and challenges. Changes in the world demographic environment have major implications for business. Thus, marketers keep a close eye on demographic trends and developments in their markets. They analyze changing age and family structures, geographic population shifts, educational characteristics, and population diversity.

1. Who are the Millenniels, and why are they of so much interest to marketers?

Answer:

Millennials (also called Generation Y or the echo boomers) were born between 1977 and 2000. These children of the baby boomers number 83 million or more, dwarfing the Gen Xers and becoming larger even than the baby boomer segment. In the postrecession era, the Millennials are the most financially strapped generation. Facing higher unemployment and saddled with more debt, many of these young consumers have near-empty piggy banks. Still, because of their numbers, the Millennials make up a huge and attractive market, both now and in the future. One thing that all Millennials have in common is their comfort with digital technology. They don’t just embrace technology; it’s a way of life. The Millennials were the first generation to grow up in a world filled with computers, mobile phones, satellite TV, iPods and iPads, and online social media. As a result, they engage with brands in an entirely new way, such as with mobile or social media.

1. Discuss trends in the natural environment of which marketers must be aware, and provide examples of companies’ responses to them?

Answer:

The natural environment involves the natural resources that are needed as inputs by marketers or that are affected by marketing activities. Marketers should be aware of several trends in the natural environment. The first involves growing shortages of raw materials. Marketers need to rely less on nonrenewable resources and use renewable resources more wisely. A second environmental trend is increased pollution. Industry will almost always damage the quality of the natural environment. A third trend is increased government intervention in natural resource management. The governments of different countries vary in their concern and efforts to promote a clean environment. The general hope is that companies around the world will accept more social responsibility, and that less expensive devices can be found to control and reduce pollution.

Concern for the natural environment has spawned the so-called green movement. Today, enlightened companies go beyond what government regulations dictate. They are developing environmentally sustainable strategies and practices in an effort to create a world economy that the planet can support indefinitely. They are responding to consumer demands with more environmentally responsible products, such as recyclable or biodegradable packaging, recycled materials and components, better pollution controls, and more energy-efficient operations. More and more, they are recognizing the link between a healthy ecology and a healthy economy. They are learning that environmentally responsible actions can also be good business.

1. Compare and contrast core beliefs/values and secondary beliefs/values. Provide an example of each and discuss the potential impact marketers have on each.

Answer:

Core beliefs and values are passed on from parents to children and are reinforced by schools, churches, business, and government. Secondary beliefs and values are more open to change. Believing in marriage is a core belief; believing that people should get married early in life is a secondary belief. Marketers have some chance of changing secondary values but little chance of changing core values.

1. How should marketers respond to the changing environment?

Answer:

Many companies view the marketing environment as an uncontrollable element to which they must react and adapt. They passively accept the marketing environment and do not try to change it. They analyze the environmental forces and design strategies that will help the company avoid the threats and take advantage of the opportunities the environment provides. Other companies take a proactive stance toward the marketing environment.

Rather than simply watching and reacting, these firms take aggressive actions to affect the publics and forces in their marketing environment. Such companies hire lobbyists to influence legislation affecting their industries and stage media events to gain favorable press coverage. They run advertorials (ads expressing editorial points of view) to shape public opinion. They press lawsuits and file complaints with regulators to keep competitors in line, and they form contractual agreements to better control their distribution channels. By taking action, companies can often overcome seemingly uncontrollable environmental events. Marketing management cannot always control environmental forces.

In many cases, it must settle for simply watching and reacting to the environment. For example, a company would have little success trying to influence geographic population shifts, the economic environment, or major cultural values. But whenever possible, smart marketing managers will take a proactive rather than reactive approach to the marketing environment.

How should marketers respond to a changing environment?

Why the company needs to respond to the marketing environment changes?

What are the strategies to deal with marketing environment?

Why is it necessary for a marketer to study the changing marketing environment?