Chapter 3: Analyzing the Marketing Environment

Chapter 3: Analyzing the Marketing Environment

1. Microenvironmental Factors

   • Company Capabilities
   • Competition
     • Competitive Intelligence: Used by firms to collect and synthesize information about their position in respect to their rivals; enables companies to anticipate changes in the marketplace rather than merely react to them
   • Corporate Partners

2. Macroenvironmental Factors

   • Culture
     • The shared meanings, beliefs, morals, values, and customs of a group of people
     • Country Culture
       • Entails easy-to-spot visible nuances that are particular to a country, such as dress, symbols, ceremonies, language, colours, and food preferences, and more subtle aspects, which are trickier to identify
     • Regional Subcultures
   • Demographics
     • Characteristics of human populations and segments, especially those used to identify consumer markets, such as age, gender, income, race, ethnicity, and education
     • Generational Cohorts
       • A group of people of the same generation-typically have similar purchase behaviours because that have shared experiences and are in the same stage in life
       • Tweens
         • Generational cohort of people who are not quite teenagers but are not young children either (ages 9-12)
       • Generation Y
         • Generational cohort of people between the ages of 13-32; the biggest cohort since the original postwar baby boomers
       • Generation X
         • Generational cohort of people between the ages of 35 and 47
       • Baby Boomers
         • Generational cohort of people born after WWII; are between the ages of 48 and 66
       • Seniors
         • North America's fastest growing generational cohort; people aged 65 and older
     • Education
     • Gender
     • Ethnicity
   • Social Trends
     • Greener Consumers
       • Green Marketing: Involves a strategic effort by firms to supply customers with environmentally friendly merchandise
     • Marketing to Children
     • Privacy Concerns
     • The Time-Poor Society
   • Technological Advances
     • Technological changes that have contributed to the improvement of the value of both products and services in the past few decades
     • Economic Situation
       • Economic changes that affect the way consumers buy merchandise and spend money
       • Inflation
         • Refers to the persistent increases in the prices of goods and services
       • Foreign Currency Fluctuations
         • Changes in the value of a country's currency relative to the currency of another country; can influence consumer spending
       • Interest Rates
         • Represent the cost of borrowing money
       • Recession
         • A period of economic downturn when the economic growth of the country is negative for at least a couple of consecutive quarters
   • Political/ Legal Environment
     • Comprises political parties, government organizations, and legislation and laws that promote on inhibit trade and marketing activities

3. Marketing Practices Covered by the Competition Act

   • Distribution (Place)
     • Refusal to Deal
     • Exclusive Dealing
     • Pyramid Selling
   • Promotion
     • Misleading Advertising
     • Bait-and-Switch
     • Referral Selling
   • Price
     • Price Fixing
     • Price Discrimination
     • Predatory Pricing
     • Resale Price Maintenance
     • Bid Rigging

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