Analysing the marketing environment

Question 1

(A Company’s Marketing Environment)

The marketing environment

Answer 1

includes the actors and forces outside marketing that affect marketing management’s ability to build and maintain successful relationships with target customers.

Question 2

(A Company’s Marketing Environment)

Microenvironment

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

(A Company’s Marketing Environment)

Macroenvironment

Answer 3

consists of the larger societal forces that affect the microenvironment—demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces.

Question 4

(The Microenvironment)

The Company

Answer 4

In designing marketing plans, marketing management takes other company groups into account.

> Top management
> Finance
> R&D
> Purchasing 
> Operations
> Accounting

Question 5

(The Microenvironment)

Suppliers

Answer 5

> Provide the resources to produce goods and services

> Treat as partners to provide customer value

Question 6

(The Microenvironment)

Marketing Intermediaries

Answer 6

Marketing intermediaries are firms that help the company to promote, sell, and distribute its goods to final buyers.

> Resellers
Physical distribution firms
Marketing services agencies
Financial intermediaries

Question 7

(The Microenvironment)

Competitors

Answer 7

Firms must gain strategic advantage by positioning their offerings strongly against competitors’ offerings in the minds of consumers.

Question 8

(The Microenvironment)

Publics

Answer 8

Any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on an organization’s ability to achieve its objectives:

> Financial publics
> Media publics
> Government publics
> Citizen-action publics
> Local publics
> General public
> Internal publics

Question 9

(The Microenvironment)

Customers

Answer 9

> Consumer markets (individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption)

> Business markets (buy goods and services for further processing or for use in their production process)

> Reseller markets (buy goods and services to resell at a profit)

> Government markets (composed of government agencies that buy goods and services to produce public services)

> International markets (buyers in other countries, including consumers, producers, resellers, and governments)

Question 10

The Macroenvironment

Answer 10

> demographic 
> economic
> natural
> technological
> political
> cultural

Question 11

(The Macroenvironment)

Demographic Environment

Answer 11

> Demography is the study of human populations– size, density, location, age, gender, race, occupation, and other statistics.

> Demographic environment involves people, and people make up markets.

> Demographic trends include changing age and family structures, geographic population shifts, educational characteristics, and population diversity.

Question 12

(The Macroenvironment)

Demographic generations

Answer 12

> Baby Boomers - born 1946 to 1964

> Generation X - born between 1965 and 1976

> Millennials- born between 1977 and 2000

> Generation Z – born after 2000

Question 13

(Demographic Environment)

Generational marketing

Answer 13

important in segmenting people by lifestyle or life stage instead of age.

Question 14

Economic Environment

Answer 14

The economic environment consists of factors that affect consumer purchasing power and spending patterns.

> Industrial economies are richer markets.

> Subsistence economies consume most of their own agriculture and industrial output.

> Developing economies also offer outstanding marketing opportunities.

Question 15

(Economic Environment)

Value marketing

Answer 15

involves offering financially cautious buyers greater value—the right combination of quality and service at a fair price.

Question 16

The Natural Environment

Answer 16

the physical environment and the natural resources that are needed as inputs by marketers or that are affected by marketing activities.

Question 17

Trends in the Natural Environment

Answer 17

> Growing shortages of raw materials
Increased pollution
Increased government intervention
Developing strategies that support environmental sustainability

Question 18

(Natural Environment)

Environmental sustainability

Answer 18

involves developing strategies and practices that create a world economy that the planet can support indefinitely.

Question 19

Technological Environment

Answer 19

> Most dramatic force in changing the marketplace
New products, opportunities
Concern for the safety of new products

Question 20

Political and Social Environment

Answer 20

Legislation regulating business is intended to protect

> companies from each other
consumers from unfair business practices
the interests of society against unrestrained business behavior

• Increased emphasis on ethics
• Socially responsible behavior
• Cause-related marketing

Question 21

Cultural Environment

Answer 21

consists of institutions and other forces that affect a society’s basic values, perceptions, and behaviors.

Question 22

(Cultural Environment)

The Persistence of Cultural Values

Answer 22

> Core beliefs and values are persistent and are passed on from parents to children and are reinforced by schools, churches, businesses, and government.

> Secondary beliefs and values are more open to change and include people’s views of themselves, others, organizations, society, nature, and the universe.

Question 23

Responding to the Marketing Environment

Answer 23

Uncontrollable
> React and adapt to forces in the environment

Proactive
> Take aggressive actions to affect forces in the environment

Reactive
> Watch and react to forces in the environment