Marketing quốc tế Marketing discussion questions

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS – MARKETING PRINCIPLES
QUESTIONS
1. Differences between Market Segmentation & Target Market
2. Explain companywide strategic planning and its four steps
3. Discuss how to design business portfolios and develop growth strategies.
4. List the marketing management functions, including the elements of a marketing plan,
and discuss the importance of measuring and managing return on marketing
investment.
5. List and discuss the major bases for segmenting consumer and business markets.
6. Explain how companies identify attractive market segments and choose a markettargeting strategy.
7. Discuss how companies differentiate and position their products for maximum
competitive advantage.
8. Define the consumer market and construct a simple model of consumer buyer
behavior.
9. Name the four major factors that influence consumer buyer behavior.
10. List and define the major types of buying decision behavior and the stages in the
buyer decision process.
11. Describe the adoption and diffusion process for new products.
12. Define the marketing information system and discuss its parts.
13. Outline the steps in the marketing research process.
14. Discuss the special issues some marketing researchers face, including public policy
and ethics issues.
15. Define product and the major classifications of products and services.
16. Describe the decisions companies make regarding their individual products and
services, product lines, and product mixes.
17. Identify the four characteristics that affect the marketing of services and the
additional marketing considerations that services require.

ANSWERS
1. Market segmentation and target marketing are two steps of the marketing process.
Although the two go hand-in-hand, there are distinct differences between them, as

market segmentation must take place before a target market is determined.
Processes: Market segmentation occurs when a company decides that they want to
identify a specific type of consumer to which they can market their product or service. A
target market is determined once the company identifies which consumers to sell to.
Function: Market segmentation is used to research the entire market as a whole and
then place consumers into separate groups based on common characteristics. The
company then decides which group is best and concentrates on selling to them, which is
also called target marketing.


Features: Market segmentation may be based on variables such as behavior,
demographics (e.g., gender, age, education, and income), geography, and
psychographic characteristics, or those based on lifestyle and personality.
Identification: A target market is identified once a company evaluates all possible market
segments and determines which would be the most appropriate, and therefore
profitable.
Positioning: Marketing a product through advertising, also known as positioning, cannot
be properly executed before market segmentation takes place and a target market is
determined.

2. Strategic planning sets the stage for the rest of the company’s planning.
Marketing contributes to strategic planning, and the overall plan defines marketing’s role
in the company.
Strategic planning involves developing a strategy for long-run survival and growth. It
consists of four steps: (1) defining the company’s mission, (2) setting objectives and
goals, (3) designing a business portfolio, and (4) developing functional plans. The
company’s mission should be market oriented, realistic, specific, motivating, and
consistent with the market environment. The mission is then transformed into detailed
supporting goals and objectives, which in turn guide decisions about the business
portfolio. Then each business and product unit must develop detailed marketing plans in

line with the company-wide plan.

3. Guided by the company’s mission statement and objectives, management plans its
business portfolio, or the collection of businesses and products that make up the
company. The firm wants to produce a business portfolio that best fits its strengths and
weaknesses to opportunities in the environment. To do this, it must analyze and adjust
its current business portfolio and develop growth and downsizing strategies for adjusting
the future portfolio. The company might use a formal portfolio-planning method. But
many companies are now designing more-customized portfolio-planning approaches that
better suit their unique situations.

4. To find the best strategy and mix and to put them into action, the company engages
in marketing analysis, planning, implementation, and control. The main components of a
marketing plan are the executive summary, the current marketing situation, threats and
opportunities, objectives and issues, marketing strategies, action programs, budgets,
and controls. To plan good strategies is often easier than to carry them out. To be
successful, companies must also be effective at implementation-turning marketing
strategies into marketing actions.
Marketing departments can be organized in one or a combination of ways: functional
marketing organization, geographic organization, product management organization, or
market management organization. In this age of customer relationships, more and more
companies are now changing their organizational focus from product or territory
management to customer relationship management. Marketing organizations carry out
marketing control, both operating control and strategic control.
Marketing managers must ensure that their marketing dollars are being well spent. In a
tighter economy, today’s marketers face growing pressures to show that they are adding


value in line with their costs. In response, marketers are developing better measures of
return on marketing investment. Increasingly, they are using customer-centered

measures of marketing impact as a key input into their strategic decision making.

5. There is no single way to segment a market. Therefore, the marketer tries different
variables to see which give the best segmentation opportunities. For consumer
marketing, the major segmentation variables are geographic, demographic,
psychographic, and behavioral. In geographic segmentation, the market is divided into
different geographical units, such as nations, regions, states, counties, cities, or even
neighborhoods. In demographic segmentation, the market is divided into groups based
on demographic variables, including age, gender, family size, family life cycle, income,
occupation, education, religion, race, generation, and nationality. In psychographic
segmentation, the market is divided into different groups based on social class, lifestyle,
or personality characteristics. In behavioral segmentation, the market is divided into
groups based on consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, uses, or responses to a product.

6. To target the best market segments, the company first evaluates each segment’s size
and growth characteristics, structural attractiveness, and compatibility with company
objectives and re- sources. It then chooses one of four market-targeting strategies ranging from very broad to very narrow targeting. The seller can ignore segment
differences and target broadly using undifferentiated (or mass) marketing. This involves
mass producing, mass distributing, and mass promoting about the same product in
about the same way to all consumers. Or the seller can adopt differentiated marketing developing different market offers for several segments. Concentrated marketing (or
niche marketing) involves focusing on one or a few market segments only. Finally,
micromarketing is the practice of tailoring products and marketing programs to suit the
tastes of specific individuals and locations. Micromarketing includes local marketing and
individual marketing. Which targeting strategy is best depends on company resources,
product variability, the PLC stage, market variability, and competitive marketing
strategies.

7. Once a company has decided which segments to enter, it must decide on its
differentiation and positioning strategy. The differentiation and positioning task consists
of three steps: identifying a set of possible differentiations that create competitive

advantage, choosing advantages on which to build a position, and selecting an overall
positioning strategy.
The brand’s full positioning is called its value proposition - the full mix of benefits on
which the brand is positioned. In general, companies can choose from one of five
winning value propositions on which to position their products: more for more, more for
the same, the same for less, less for much less, or more for less. Company and brand
positioning are summarized in positioning statements that state the target segment and
need, the positioning concept, and specific points of difference. The company must then
effectively communicate and deliver the chosen position to the market.

8. The consumer market consists of all the individuals and house- holds who buy or
acquire goods and services for personal consumption. The simplest model of consumer
buyer behavior is the stimulus-response model. According to this model, marketing


stimuli (the four Ps) and other major forces (economic, technological, political, cultural)
enter the consumer’s “black box” and produce certain responses. Once in the black
box, these inputs produce observable buyer responses, such as product choice,
brand choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount.

9. Consumer buyer behavior is influenced by four key sets of buyer characteristics:
cultural, social, personal, and psychological. Although many of these factors cannot be
influenced by the marketer, they can be useful in identifying interested buyers and
shaping products and appeals to serve consumer needs better. Culture is the most
basic determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. Subcultures are “cultures within
cultures” that have distinct values and lifestyles and can be based on anything from age
to ethnicity. Many companies focused their marketing programs on the special needs of
certain cultural and subcultural segments.
Social factors also influence a buyer’s behavior. A person’s reference groups - family,
friends, social networks, professional associations - strongly affect product and brand

choices. The buyer’s age, life-cycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances,
personality, and other personal characteristics influence his or her buying decisions.
Consumer lifestyles - the whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world - are also
an important influence on purchase decisions. Finally, consumer buying behavior is
influenced by four major psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning, and
beliefs and attitudes. Each of these factors provides a different perspective for
understanding the workings of the buyer’s black box.

10. Buying behavior may vary greatly across different types of products and buying
decisions. Consumers undertake complex buying behavior when they are highly involved
in a purchase and perceive significant differences among brands. Dissonance-reducing
behavior occurs when consumers are highly involved but see little difference among
brands. Habitual buying behavior occurs under conditions of low involvement and little
significant brand difference. In situations characterized by low involvement but
significant perceived brand differences, consumers engage in variety-seeking buying
behavior.
When making a purchase, the buyer goes through a decision process consisting of
need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and
post-purchase behavior. The marketer’s job is to understand the buyer’s behavior at
each stage and the influences that are operating. During need recognition, the consumer
recognizes a problem or need that could be satisfied by a product or service in the
market. Once the need is recognized, the consumer is aroused to seek more information
and moves into the information search stage. With information in hand, the consumer
proceeds to alternative evaluation, during which the in- formation is used to evaluate
brands in the choice set. From there, the consumer makes a purchase decision and
actually buys the product. In the final stage of the buyer decision process, post-purchase
behavior, the consumer takes action based on satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

11. The product adoption process is made up of five stages: aware- ness, interest,
evaluation, trial, and adoption. New-product marketers must think about how to help

consumers move through these stages. With regard to the diffusion process for new
products, consumers respond at different rates, depending on consumer and product
characteristics. Consumers may be innovators, early adopters, early majority, late


majority, or laggards. Each group may require different marketing approaches. Marketers
often try to bring their new products to the attention of potential early adopters,
especially those who are opinion leaders. Finally, several characteristics influence the
rate of adoption: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility, and
communicability.

12. The marketing information system (MIS) consists of people and procedures for
assessing information needs, developing the needed information, and helping decision
makers use the information to generate and validate actionable customer and market
insights. A well-designed information system begins and ends with users.
The MIS first assesses information needs. The MIS primarily serves the company’s
marketing and other managers, but it may also provide information to external partners.
Then the MIS develops information from internal databases, marketing intelligence
activities, and marketing research. Internal databases pro- vide information on the
company’s own operations and departments. Such data can be obtained quickly and
cheaply but often needs to be adapted for marketing decisions. Marketing intelligence
activities supply everyday information about developments in the external marketing
environment. Market research consists of collecting information relevant to a specific
marketing problem faced by the company. Lastly, the MIS helps users analyze and use
the information to develop customer insights, make marketing decisions, and manage
customer relationships.

13. The first step in the marketing research process involves defining the problem and
setting the research objectives, which may be exploratory, descriptive, or causal
research. The second step consists of developing a research plan for collecting data from

primary and secondary sources. The third step calls for implementing the marketing
research plan by gathering, processing, and analyzing the information. The fourth step
consists of interpreting and reporting the findings. Additional information analysis
helps marketing managers apply the information and provides them with sophisticated
statistical procedures and models from which to develop more rigorous findings.
Both internal and external secondary data sources often pro- vide information more
quickly and at a lower cost than primary data sources, and they can sometimes yield
information that a company cannot collect by itself. However, needed information might
not exist in secondary sources. Researchers must also evaluate secondary information to
ensure that it is relevant, accurate, current, and impartial.
Primary research must also be evaluated for these features. Each primary data collection
method - observational, survey, and experimental - has its own advantages and
disadvantages. Similarly, each of the various research contact methods - mail,
telephone, personal interview, and online - also has its own advantages and drawbacks.

14. Some marketers face special marketing research situations, such as those
conducting research in small business, not-for-profit, or international situations.
Marketing research can be conducted effectively by small businesses and nonprofit
organizations with limited budgets. International marketing researchers follow the same
steps as domestic researchers but often face more and different problems. All
organizations need to act responsibly to major public policy and ethical issues


surrounding marketing research, including issues of intrusions on consumer privacy and
misuse of research findings.

15. Broadly defined, a product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention,
acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. Products include
physical objects but also services, events, persons, places, organizations, or ideas, or
mixtures of these entities. Services are products that consist of activities, benefits, or

satisfactions offered for sale that are essentially intangible, such as banking, hotel, tax
preparation, and home-repair services.
Products and services fall into two broad classes based on the types of consumers that
use them. Consumer products - those bought by final consumers - are usually classified
according to consumer shopping habits (convenience products, shopping products,
specialty products, and unsought products). Industrial products - purchased for further
processing or for use in conducting a business - include materials and parts, capital
items, and supplies and services. Other marketable entities - such as organizations,
persons, places, and ideas - can also be thought of as products.

16. Individual product decisions involve product attributes, branding, packaging,
labeling, and product support services. Product attribute decisions involve product
quality, features, and style and de- sign. Branding decisions include selecting a brand
name and developing a brand strategy. Packaging provides many key benefits, such as
protection, economy, convenience, and promotion. Package decisions often include
designing labels, which identify, describe, and possibly promote the product. Companies
also develop product support services that enhance customer service and satisfaction
and safeguard against competitors.
Most companies produce a product line rather than a single product. A product line is a
group of products that are related in function, customer-purchase needs, or distribution
channels. All product lines and items offered to customers by a particular seller make up
the product mix. The mix can be described by four dimensions: width, length, depth, and
consistency. These dimensions are the tools for developing the company’s product
strategy.

17. Services are characterized by four key characteristics: they are intangible,
inseparable, variable, and perishable. Each characteristic poses problems and marketing
requirements. Marketers work to find ways to make the service more tangible, increase
the productivity of providers who are inseparable from their products, standardize
quality in the face of variability, and improve demand movements and supply capacities

in the face of service perishability.
Good service companies focus attention on both customers and employees. They
understand the service profit chain, which links service firm profits with employee and
customer satisfaction. Services marketing strategy calls not only for external marketing
but also for internal marketing to motivate employees and interactive marketing to
create service delivery skills among service providers. To succeed, service marketers
must create competitive differentiation, offer high service quality, and find ways to
increase service productivity.