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Changes in Consumer Spending:

After the Great Recession of 2008/2009, a decrease in customer spending in all product categories forced marketers to shift to value marketing.

Economic Environment:

Changes in variables, such as income, cost of living, interest rates, and savings and borrowing patterns reflect changes in the economic environment of a company.

Subtsitinence Economies

Consume most of their own agricultural output and offer few market opportunities.

Political Environment

-Consists of laws, government agencies, and pressure groups that influence or limit various organizations and individuals in a given society. -Legislation Regulating Business: • Governments enact business legislation to prevent unfair competition in the market. • Business laws that are enforced by government agencies have a major impact on a company's marketing performance. -Increased Ethics and Socially Responsible Actions: • An ethical concern about companies that use online marketing techniques and involve consumer information in the process is that these companies track, share, and misuse browsing details of unknowing customers. • Cause-Related Marketing: • Example: A firm selling electronics and giving a percentage of sales to charity.

Technological Environment

-Increased use of RFID systems to track products. -Every new technology makes an older technology obsolete.

Cultural Environment

-Persistence of Cultural Values: • Core beliefs and values have a high degree of persistence. -People's Views of Organizations: • Many people view work at an organization as a required chore.

Marketing Environment (approach/stance)

-Reactive Approach: • Firms take advantage of opportunities provided by the environment. -Proactive Stance: • Firms develop strategies to change the marketing environment. • Example: Running advertorials to shape public opinion.

Natural Environment:

Example: Fargo Inc. is a carbonated beverage manufacturer that has many manufacturing plants around the world. It is planning to shift from using thermal power to wind power for its manufacturing plants in the Netherlands to decrease dependency on nonrenewable sources of energy.

Marketing Intermediaries

Help firms by moving the firm's goods from production points to distribution centers. • Resellers: Distribution channel firms that help the company find customers or make sales to them. • Marketing Service Agencies: The marketing research firms, advertising agencies, media firms, and marketing consulting firms that help the company target and promote its products to the right markets. • Financial Intermediaries: Insures manufacturers, distributors, and consumers against the loss or damage of goods during transportation after a purchase or sale.

Suppliers

Provide resources needed by the company to produce its goods and services.

Microenvironment

The actors close to the company that affect its ability to serve its customers:

Marketing Environment

consists of actors and forces outside marketing that affect marketing manager's ability to build and maintain successful relationships with target customers

Macroenvironment

The larger societal forces that affect the microenvironment: • Demographic Forces • Economic Forces • Natural Forces • Technological Forces • Political Forces • Cultural Forces

Demography

The study of human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race, occupation, and other statistics. -Age: -Baby Boomers: • Born between 1946 - 1964. • They are the wealthiest generation in U.S. history. • Control the highest percentage of disposable income in the United States. • More active baby boomers are called "zoomers." -Generation Xers (65-76): • They were the first group to grow up in the Internet era. • Less materialistic when compared with other groups. • Most educated generation to date. -Millennial Generation(77-00)(generation y): • They like to engage in two-way brand conversions. • The most financially strapped generation in the post-recession era. -Generation Z (2000-current): • Consists of kid, teen, and tween markets. • Most comfortable using digital technologies. -Geographic Shifts: • In recent times, more Americans are moving to micropolitan areas. • More people are working remotely. -Increased Education and Professionalism: • Greater job growth for professional workers. • Decrease in the proportion of manufacturing workers. -Increasing Diversity: • Various ethnic groups mix together but also retain their cultural differences.

The company

Top Management: Sets the company's mission, objectives, broad strategies, and policies

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 • Financial Publics: The group influences the company's ability to obtain funds o Stockholders o Banks o Investment Analysts • Media Publics: This group carries news, features, editorial opinions, and other content o Television Station o Newspapers o Magazines o Blogs o Other Social Media • Citizen Action Publics: A company's marketing decisions may be questioned by consumer organizations, environmental groups, minority groups and others. Its public relations department can help it stay in touch with consumer and citizen groups. o Example: Kelstone Developers is planning to build a new shopping mall that would require the partial acquisition of a nearby public park. Walking Green, an environmental group, challenges the plan citing environmental destruction. In response to the demands of Walking Green, Kelstone Developers promise to build a huge park-like walkway around the mall. Walking Green is an example of a citizen action public. • Local Publics: This group includes neighborhood residents and community organizations. Large companies usually create departments and programs that deal with local community issues and provide community support. o Example: The town of Genter recently witnessed a devastating hurricane that crippled the town's infrastructure. Q-Mart, a retail chain that plans to open a new retail store in Genter, organizes a program to help the people of Genter. The program consists of providing free meals to those who lost their dwellings in the hurricane. • Internal Publics: This group includes workers, managers, volunteers, and the board of directors. Large companies use newsletters and other means to inform and motivate their internal publics. When employees fell good about the companies they work for, this positive attitude spills over to the external publics.

Customer Markets

• Consumer Markets: Consist of individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal use. • Business Markets: Buy goods and services for further processes or use in their production processes. o Example: Dextora Technologies manufactures microprocessors and caters exclusively to private manufacturers that produce high-end computers. Dextora targets business markets. • Reseller Market: Firms that buy goods and services to sell at profit. o Example: JJ Distributors Ltd. buys electronic products from manufacturers for wholesale and sells them to various retail outlets. JJ Distributors Ltd. caters reseller markets.