Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Figure 3.5 
Differences between generations
Source: adapted from Barclays.
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Formative experiences
Characteristics
Maturists
(pre–1945)
Baby Boomers
(1945–1960)
Generation X
(1961–1980)
Generation Y
(1981–1995)
Generation Z
(Born after 1995)
Percentage in
UK workforce
Currently employed in
either part-time jobs or
new apprenticeships
3%
33%
35%
29%
Aspiration
Home ownership
Largely disengaged
Jobs are for life
Automobile
Formal letter
Face-to-face
Face-to-face meetings
Face-to-face
Job security
Early information
technology (IT) adaptors
Organisational — careers
are defined by employers
Television
Telephone
Face-to-face ideally, but
telephone or email if required
Face-to-face ideally, but
increasingly will go online
Work–life balance
Digital immigrants
Early ‘portfolio’ careers
– loyal to profession, not
necessarily to employer
Personal computer
Online – would prefer
face-to-face if time permitting
Attitude towards
technology
Attitude towards
career
Signature product
Communication media
Communication
preference
Preference when making
financial decisions
Second World War
Rationing
Fixed gender roles
Rock ‘n’ Roll
Nuclear families
Defined gender roles—
particularly for women
Cold War
Post-war boom
‘Swinging Sixties’
Apollo moon landings
Youth culture
Woodstock
Family-oriented
Rise of the teenager
End of Cold War
Fall of Berlin Wall
Reagan /Gorbachev
Thatcherism
Live Aid
Introduction of first PC
Early mobile technology
Latch-key kids
Rising levels of divorce
9/11 terrorist attacks
PlayStation
Social media
Invasion of Iraq
Reality TV
Google Earth
Glastonbury
Economic downturn
Global warming
Global focus
Mobile devices
Energy crisis
Arab Spring
Produce own media
Cloud computing
WikiLeaks
Text messaging or e-mail
Text or social media
Freedom
and flexibility
Digital natives
Digital entrepreneurs –
work ‘with’ organisations
not ‘for’
Tablet/smartphone
Online and mobile
(text messaging)
Solutions will be digitally
crowdsourced
Hand-held (or integrated into
clothing) communication devices
Security
and stability
‘Technoholics’ – entirely
dependent on IT: limited
grasp of alternatives
Career multitaskers – will
move seamlessly between
organisations and ‘pop-up’
businesses
Google Glass, graphene,
nano-computing,
3-D printing, driverless cars
Facetime

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CHAPTER 3 THE CHANGING MARKET ENVIRONMENT
advertisements in Hindi to promote long-distance phone calls, and W.H. Smith for stocking 
ethnic greetings cards (Dwek, 1997).
Changing living patterns and lifestyles
There has also been an increase in single-person households, predicted by Euromonitor to 
be the fastest-growing household profile worldwide (not just in the West) between 2014 and 
2030. This is leading to the development of smaller goods or services targeted at singles, 
such as Daewoo’s mini washing machine and Cerca Travel’s two-day ‘solo wedding’ pack-
ages for single women.
A further development has been the significant growth in the number of women in employ-
ment, be it full- or part-time. This has led to changes in household eating patterns, with an 
emphasis on convenience foods and cooking. It has, in turn, led to increased markets for 
products to make cooking and meal preparation easier and quicker, such as the KitchenAid 
or Kenwood multifunction food processors that can do everything from food preparation to 
cooking, or recipe boxes that can be bought in the supermarket or delivered to people’s homes.
Coupled with greater concern for the environment is greater concern for personal health. 
There has been a dramatic movement in the grocery industry, for example, towards healthier 
food products, such as wholemeal bread, bran-based cereals, ‘superfoods’ and vegan food (for 
being kinder to the planet). This movement, originally dismissed by many food manufacturers 
as a passing fad among a minority of the population, has accelerated with the marketing of 
organically produced products and low-sugar, salt-free products, free from additives, colour-
ings and preservatives (the British government imposed a tax on sugar in March 2016). Fitness 
products in general, from sportswear and exercise machines to the membership of gyms and 
leisure clubs, have enjoyed very buoyant markets. By 2014, over 22 per cent of household 
expenditure in the United Kingdom was spent on leisure activities and products.
Also of relevance to the overall economic conditions in which organisations operate is 
the political environment. In the USA, a Democrat, Barack Obama, was returned to the 
White House in 2008, and in the UK the May 2010 election resulted in the first coalition 
government (between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties) in over 60 years. 
Such political leaders and their parties set the economic agenda – more or less taxation, 
more or less public spending, more or less investment, more or less public ownership. This, 
in turn, creates opportunities and challenges for all sectors of the economy. For example, 
Donald Trump, a Republican, was elected in the USA in 2016 with a completely different 
economic agenda from his predecessor and, as mentioned previously, the world is seeing a 
rise in ‘populist’ parties with more protectionist agendas.
3.3.1 Social, cultural and environmental pressures on organisations
Customers are becoming increasingly demanding of the products and services they buy. 
Customers demand, and expect, reliable and durable products with quick, efficient service 
at reasonable prices. What is more, there is little long-term stability in customer demand. 
Competitive positions are achieved through offering superior customer value, yet without 
constant improvement ‘value migration’ will occur – buyers will migrate to an alternative 
value offering (Slywotzky, 1996).
Companies are well advised to recognise that how customers see value can change. Indeed, 
brand values are becoming more and more relevant to purchasing decisions. In the UK, one in 
four people believe that brands’ values are just as important as the products themselves. This 
group expects brands to take a stand on social matters and will reward companies that do:
● 
90 per cent would try a company’s product for the first time if they took a stand;
● 
83 per cent would switch to a competitor if no stand was taken;
● 
83 per cent would pay a premium for a socially aware company’s products;
● 
73 per cent would share the company’s information on social media (Marketing Week, 
24 September 2018).

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65
THE TECHNOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT
A second major trend, exacerbated by the recession and looking set to continue, is that 
customers are less prepared to pay a substantial premium for products or services that do 
not offer demonstrably greater value. While it is undeniable that well-developed and man-
aged brands can command higher prices than unbranded products in many markets, the 
differentials commanded are now far less than they were, and customers are increasingly 
questioning the extra value they get for the extra expense. The sophisticated customer is 
less likely to be attracted to cheap products with low quality, but is also unlikely to be won 
by purely image-based advertising. The implications are clear – differentiation needs to be 
based on providing demonstrably superior value to customers. 
Increased questioning of the industrial profit motive as the prime objective for commer-
cial enterprises has grown. Some are going further in explicitly measuring their performance 
through the ‘triple bottom line’ (TBL) of People, Planet and Profit. The phrase originated 
in the early 1990s ( Elkington, 1994 ) and recognises that business has responsibilities not 
only to shareholders but also to other stakeholders affected directly or indirectly by the 
business. ‘People’ relates to the human capital in the company – both the people working 
in the organisation and the community in which a company conducts its business. Fairtrade 
practices, for example, seek to ensure farmers and producers of foodstuffs receive fair rec-
ompense for their labours. ‘Planet’ relates to the natural capital the organisation uses and 
its attempts to minimise environmental impact. Organisations practising a TBL approach 
endeavour to minimise their ecological footprint through controlling use of energy, switch-
ing to renewable energy sources where possible and reducing manufacturing waste. ‘Profit’ 
is the net economic value created by the organisation and goes beyond the internal profit 
created by a firm to encompass the economic impact the organisation has on its wider eco-
nomic environment and society. In short, the triple bottom line approach aims at creating 
sustainable businesses in a more sustainable environment. 
A further social/cultural change has been in attitudes to, and concern for, the physical 
or natural environment. Environmental pressure groups impact on businesses, so much so 
that major oil multinationals and others spend large amounts on corporate advertising each 
year to demonstrate their concern and care for the environment. The activities of groups 
such as Greenpeace have begun to have a major impact on public opinion and now affect 
policy making at the national and international levels. It is to be expected that concern for 
the environment will increase and hence will be a major factor in managing that prime mar-
keting asset – company reputation. The significance of the impact on business is underlined 
by the three-year ‘Save The Arctic’ campaign of Greenpeace and others against Shell’s drill-
ing there. In September 2015, Shell announced it was withdrawing its plan. In April 2019, 
Extinction Rebellion, established in the UK in 2018 as a socio-political movement against 
climate change, blocked streets in London over several days, creating transport difficulties. 
The group was joined by a teenage Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg, in asking for 
action. This led the leader of the opposition to force a vote on whether the UK should be 
the first country to declare an environmental emergency. 
Many car manufacturers are also now offering hybrid or totally electric cars. The entry 
of BMW in 2014 into the electric car market gave it a more ‘mainstream’ status.
3.4 
The technological environment 
The latter part of the twentieth century saw technological change and development impact 
on virtually every industry sector. A number of these significant developments are discussed 
next. 
There has been a shortening of commercialisation times of new inventions. Photogra-
phy, for example, took over 100 years from initial invention to commercial viability. The 
telephone took 56 years, radio 35 years, television 12 years and the transistor only 3 years. 

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