Part 1:

Marketing and Marketing Strategy

Part 1 of this textbook provides a background by which to understand the rest of the contents. Marketing has many tactical components, like pricing and advertising, but these must be understood in the context of an overall strategy. When a marketer is focused on tactics without a strategy ('tactification'), focus and effectiveness are lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1: What is Consumer Marketing?

This chapter defines marketing and helps to build fundamental knowledge of the discipline. As part of defining marketing, the chapter looks at how marketing has evolved. The chapter also outlines the process of creating a marketing strategy, which includes diagnosis, strategy, tactics and feedback. The South African marketing environment is briefly discussed.

Chapter 2: The Role of Marketing in Delivering Corporate Strategy

Marketing strategy is a crucial tool in executing corporate strategy, but only if the relationship between these two is understood. This chapter discusses the role of marketing strategy in delivering corporate strategy and uses some generic corporate strategy models as examples.

Chapter 3: Sustainability in Consumer Marketing

As part of its very definition, marketing emphasises the need to value society at large to meet needs in the long term. While not always complied with, this view of sustainability has become core to marketing. This chapter frames sustainability in marketing and provides an understanding of sustainable consumption. The idea of 'greenwashing' one's marketing strategy is also discussed. The chapter is a call for marketers to think ahead and have the long-term interests of consumers at heart.

Chapter 4: The Marketer's Micro Environment

As a consumer marketer, effectiveness comes from multiple considerations. Some factors are outside of the marketer's control (the macro-environment is discussed in Chapter 8). This chapter discusses the marketer's world in the form of the company, consumers, competitors, suppliers, intermediaries and other stakeholders with which they interact. These components form the basic marketing micro-environment and are within the marketer's direct sphere of influence.

Understanding the basics of marketing, marketing strategy and the influences of the micro-environment is the starting point of marketing to South African consumers.