Strategic marketing planning

Abstract

Over the past decade the marketing environment has changed in a series of dramatic and farreaching ways. Among some of the most significant of these changes has been the emergence of what within this book we refer to as ‘the new consumer’ and ‘the new competition’. This new consumer is typically far more demanding, far more discriminating, much less loyal and more willing to complain than in the past, whilst the new competition is frequently far less predictable and often more desperate than previously. At the same time, the marketing environment has also been affected by a series of unpredictable events (11 September 2001 is just one of the more obvious of these) and by the emergence of new technologies and delivery systems. Together these changes have led to a new type of marketing reality that has major implications for the marketing planning and strategy processes. The question of how marketing planners might respond – or indeed have responded – to the new marketing reality is therefore an underlying theme of this book.