Most of the published reports about the effects of 1992 relate to consumer goods and services, to the neglect of the very large business-to-business sector. Success in the Single European Market will depend on a good understanding of a. the differences and similarities between marketing to businesses and to domestic consumers; b. the relatively complex structure of each customer's Decision-Making Unit; c. the characteristic ways of doing business in each EC (and other European) country, which will continue to differ long after 1992; d. the choice of communication channels through which buying decisions can be influenced. Implementing an effective marketing plan for Europe will for most companies demand changes in product offering, marketing mix, organizational structure and above all corporate attitudes, so as to profit from the new opportunities for integrated marketing communications campaigns. No systematic study of all these issues has yet been made, but reports have been published of individual aspects of business marketing or of specific countries. This paper collates the most useful of these and adds the practical experience of an international agency specializing in business-to-business advertising and marketing.
This paper proposes the thesis that corporate advertising is not a new type of advertising, but a relatively new application of normal advertising practice. It can successfully be planned and assessed with the techniques that have been developed for advertising intended to sell goods and services.
Corporate advertising requires a research-based approach just as much as product advertising. A good example is Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., who have been using this approach in Britain since the 1940's. Following research in 1968, the campaign has been aimed not only at conventional "opinion-formers" through the press, but also at the general public through television. A continuous programme of opinion research has been used to identify the need for the campaign, to set targets, and to monitor its effects. Qualitative research is used to pre-test and modify the advertising. This paper proposes the thesis that corporate advertising is not a new type of advertising, but a relatively new application of normal advertising practice. It can successfully be planned and assessed with the techniques that have been developed for advertising intended to sell goods and services.
In the first place we shall discuss the place of price in the marketing mix for products in general and a newspaper in particular. We shall examine the complexities of the "joint supply" of editorial and advertising space. Next we examine the role of price in the British newspaper business, and the effects that price changes have had in practice. This leads to a discussion of the value of setting a marketing strategy by economic research into price elasticity, and diagnostic market research into readers' awareness, behaviour and attitudes to price and related aspects of newspapers . Finally, we will show some examples of the findings of surveys we have carried out in recent years.
It has often been suggested that marketing in the service trades bears no relation to conventional package goods. However, to give one example, there is considerable evidence that the most successful operators in the tourist industry in recent years have been those who have used the techniques developed in the food and drug business. These successes cover a wide range of travel services such as airlines, travel agents, car rental companies, package-tour operators and hotel chains. This paper gives as a case history the development of a new promotional campaign for a national tourist board.
Segmented marketing is likely to replace traditional mass marketing techniques in many product fields in the future. This development will involve market researchers more frequently in what are usually described as market segmentation studies. Yet the literature available is of only limited value to the researcher embarking upon such a study because it deals largely with the development of multivariant analysis techniques of increasing power and elegance. The authors feel that insufficient attention has been paid to the problems of deciding what data should be collected to make this type of research valid and relevant to the marketing problem, or choosing which analysis technique is most appropriate, and equally important in practice, how to communicate the unusually sophisticated findings to those who have to integrate them with other information and take marketing action. They illustrate some of the difficulties and solutions which have been found in practice by reference to studies which they have carried out in various product fields. They describe the steps they carry out in the course of a "consumer attitude factor" study, and some of the analytic and graphic techniques that have been helpful in making the results comprehensible. These studies are used to show how market segmentation research helped in the improvement of the marketing and advertising strategy of some existing products, and how "holes in the market" were located so that guidance could be given in the formulation, testing and promotion of new products and brands.