Chapter 4
The Marketing Environment
4-1
Road Map: Previewing the Concepts
Describe the environmental forces that affect
the company’s ability to serve its customers.
Explain how changes in the demographic and
economic environments affect marketing
decisions.
Identify the major trends in the firm’s natural
and technological environments.
Explain the key changes in the political and
cultural environments.
Discuss how companies can react to the
marketing environment.
4-2
Marketing Environment
Marketing Environment- consists of the actors
and forces outside marketing that affect
marketing management’s ability to develop and
maintain successful relationships with its target
customers.
Includes:
Microenvironment - forces close to the company that
affect its ability to serve its customers.
Macroenvironment - larger societal forces that affect
the microenvironment.
4-3
Company’s Internal Environment
(Fig. 4-1)
4-4
The Company’s Microenvironment
Company’s Internal Environment –
areas inside a company; top management,
affect the marketing department’s plans
Suppliers –
provide resources needed to produce goods and
services,
important link in the “value delivery system”
Marketing Intermediaries –
help the company to promote, sell, and distribute
its goods to final buyers i.e. resellers
4-5
The Company’s Microenvironment
Customers –
five types of markets that purchase a company’s
goods and services
Competitors –
those who serve a target market with similar
products and services,
company must gain strategic advantage against
these organizations
Publics –
group that has an interest in or impact on an
organization's ability to achieve its objectives
4-6
Types of Customer Markets
(Fig. 4-2)
4-7
Types of Publics (Fig. 4-3)
4-8
The Company’s Macroenvironment
(Fig. 4-4)
4-9
The Company’s Macroenvironment
Demographic –
studies populations in terms of size, density,
location, age, gender, race, occupation and
other statistics.
Economic –
factors that affect consumer purchasing power
and spending patterns.
Natural natural resources needed as inputs by
marketers or that are affected by marketing
activities.
4-10
Key U.S.Demographic Trends
Changing Age Structure
Population contains 7 generational groups
Changing American Family
Later (or no) marriage, fewer children, working
women, and nontraditional households
Geographic Shifts
Shifted to the Sunbelt, suburbs,
“micropolitan areas”
Better-Educated & More White-Collar
Increased college attendance
(up 9% in 20 years) and white-collar workers
Increasing Diversity
Ethnic heritage, gays & lesbians, disabled people
4-11
Changing Age Structure
(78 million people born 1946-1964)
One of the most powerful forces shaping the
marketing environment, 28% of population
(45 million people born 1965-1976)
More skeptical, savvy shoppers, respond to
honesty in advertising, share cultural concerns
(72 million people born 1977-1994)
Fluent and comfortable with technology,
smart, aware, fair-minded (N-Gens)
4-12
Changing American Family
58% of all women 16
and older are working
or looking for a job.
Many marketers of
tires, cars, insurance,
travel and financial
services target these
women.
http://www.ml.com/
4-13
Form small groups to discuss the
following questions.
With respect to the seven U.S. generations
(Fig. 4-5), which generation are you in?
– How would you describe your generation?
If you were going to attempt to sell to the
older baby boomer generation, what would
be a key to selling successfully to this
generational group?
4-14
Economic Environment
Changes in Income
1980’s – consumption
frenzy
1990’s – “squeezed
consumer”
2000’s – value marketing
Income Distribution
Upper class
Middle class
Working class
Underclass
Changing Consumer
Spending Patterns
Engel’s laws Consumers at
different income
levels have different
spending patterns
4-15
Natural Environment
Shortages of
Raw Materials
Environmentally
Sustainable
Strategies
Factors
Affecting
the
Natural
Environment
Increased Government
Intervention
Increased
Pollution
4-16
The Company’s Macroenvironment
Technological –
Most dramatic force now shaping our destiny.
Political –
laws, government agencies, and pressure
groups that influence and limit organizations
and individuals in a given society.
Cultural –
institutions and other forces that affect a
society’s basic values, perceptions, preferences,
and behaviors.
4-17
Technological Environment
Changes rapidly
Creates new markets
and opportunities
Challenge to make
practical, affordable
products
Safety regulations
result in higher
research costs
4-18
Which technological force will impact
marketing the most in the near future?
What technological force has impacted
you the most? Comment.
4-19
Political Environment
Includes Laws, Government Agencies, Etc. that Influence
& Limit Organizations/Individuals in a Given Society
Increasing
Legislation
Changing
Government
Agency
Enforcement
Increased
Emphasis on
Ethics &
Socially
Responsible
Actions
4-20
Cultural Environment
Yankelovick Monitor has identified eight major
consumer value themes:
Paradox
Trust not
Go it alone
Smarts really count
No sacrifices
Stress hard to beat
Reciprocity is the way to go
Me 2
4-21
Cultural Environment
Themselves
Society’s Major
Cultural Views Are
Expressed in
People’s View of:
Others
Organizations
Society
Nature
The Universe
4-22
Responding to the
Marketing Environment
Environmental Management Perspective
• Taking a proactive approach to managing the
microenvironment and the
macroenvironment by taking aggressive
(rather than passive) actions to affect the
publics and forces in the marketing
environment.
• How? Hire lobbyists , run “advertorials”,
press law suits, file complaints, and form
agreements.
4-23
Rest Stop: Reviewing the Concepts
Describe the environmental forces that affect the
company’s ability to serve its customers.
Explain how changes in the demographic and
economic environments affect marketing
decisions.
Identify the major trends in the firm’s natural and
technological environments.
Explain the key changes in the political and
cultural environments.
Discuss how companies can react to the
marketing environment.
4-24