市场营销战略外文翻译文献

文献信息：

文献标题：Marketing strategy：From the origin of the concept to the development of a conceptual framework（市场营销战略：从概念的起源到概念框架的发展）

国外作者：Eric H. Shaw

文献出处：《Journal of Historical Research in Marketing》,2012, 4(1):30-55

字数统计：英文1716单词，9394字符；中文3209汉字

外文文献：

Marketing strategy：From the origin of the concept to the

development of a conceptual framework

Early marketing strategy concepts

Before marketing strategy developed as an off-shoot of marketing management in the 1970s, even before marketing management emerged as a school of thought in the 1960s to replace the traditional approaches to marketing (Bartels, 1988; Sheth et al., 1988; Shaw and Jones, 2005), a few isolated concepts were developed in the 1950s literature that form the core of modern marketing strategy. These seminal concepts include: Borden’s (1957, 1964) expression of the “marketing mix,” Smith’s (1956) development of “product differentiation” and “market segmentation” as alternative marketing strategies, Dean’s (1951) conception of “skimming” and “penetration” as alternative pricing (that he extended to the whole marketing mix) strategies, and Forrester’s (1959) description of the “product life cycle (PLC).”

Corporate strategy concepts

The strategic concepts discussed so far (the marketing mix, skimming and penetration, differentiation and segmentation, and the PLC), were created by economists and marketing scholars and gained popularity in early marketing management textbooks. The following strategic concepts, Andrews’ SWOT, Ansoff’s growth strategies, Porter’s generic strategies, and Henderson’s product portfolio model, were developed for corporate management, not marketing management. Because marketing strategy is a major component of corporate strategy there is overlap, but these two areas are not isomorphic. Nevertheless, corporate strategy concepts have been shoehorned intact into subsequent generations of marketing textbooks from the 1970s and 1980s to the present. It is largely shoehorning of borrowed concepts that has created the present state of isolated bits and pieces of marketing strategy rather than the development of an overarching conceptual framework.

Framework for marketing strategy

Having followed the literature and dissected marketing strategy terms, this section integrates the concepts into a framework that identifies alternative marketing strategies at different stages of the PLC and under various SWOT conditions.

Market introduction strategies At introduction, the marketing strategist has two principle strategies to choose from: penetration or niche. A penetration strategy (Dean, 1951; Ansoff, 1965) emphasizes an aggressive marketing mix for a mass market or a large segment of the market. As the term has been developed in this research, a penetration strategy is not limited to a current product in a current market (Ansoff) or just a low introductory price (Dean). A penetration strategy involves using the marketing mix aggressively. Although every mix element need not be aggressive, a penetration strategy should include some combination of a no-frills product, minimal service, low price, high promotional expenditures and intensive distribution effort. A penetration strategy, following Andrew’s SWOT, is ideal for large firms with strong financial resources

facing a large and growing market, price sensitive customers with minimal brand awareness or preference, many potential competitors and few barriers to entry. A penetration strategy will work from the introduction into the growth stage and perhaps as late as the early maturity stage of the PLC. As an offering approaches maturity, however, high marketing mix expenditures cannot be sustained as sales growth slows and marginal costs rise more rapidly than marginal revenue.

Alternatively, a niche strategy (Kotler, 1980; Porter, 1980; McCarthy, 1981) focuses on a narrowly defined customer segment and is ideal for smaller firms with limited resources. The niche strategy expands Porter’s “focus” (Porter, 1980) or “narrow target segment” (Porter, 1990) strategy and incorporates Dean’s (1951) price skimming but from the angle of a market segment’s price sensitivity. Although a segmentation-oriented strategy, the marketing mix aimed at a niche is largely dictated by company and market considerations. With the niche strategy (Alderson, 1957; confusingly termed concentrated segmentation by Kotler, 1976) a firm targets a narrowly defined customer segment. The marketing mix typically involves a custom tailored product offering, a high price, and given the small-sized customer base, promotional expenditures are focused and thereby relatively low, with selective or exclusive distribution coverage. This strategy works well in smaller segments requiring higher profit margins to compensate for lack of sales volume, when customers are insensitive to price, can easily be made aware of the brand with minimal promotional effort, and the firm can create some barriers to entry resulting in few direct competitors. The niche strategy can be highly profitable, even in very small segments, because it combines high price with low marketing mix expenditures (Kotler, 1980). This strategy has the added virtue of allowing pin-point timing. A niche strategy does not require a lot of set-up and breakdown time, effort or money, allowing a firm to move in and out of the market quickly. Taking advantage of “windows of opportunity” (Abell, 1978), a niche is therefore potentially profitable at virtually any stage of the life cycle from introduction to decline. For example, the General Pencil Company (GPC) founded in 1889, produced a high quality lead pencil (once the standard bearer of the ubiquitous No. 2 pencil), but since pencils have

become a throw-away, even single-use product, GPC was unable to compete with cheap imports on price. Facing a declining market, for a commodity type product, GPC found their niche – artists and illustrators who required a harder more durable lead in their pencil and were willing to pay a premium price for a higher quality product.

Market growth strategies In the early growth stage, the marketing manager may choose from two additional strategic alternatives: segment expansion (Smith, Ansoff) or brand expansion (Borden, Ansoff, Kerin and Peterson, 1978). In segment expansion, the strategist adds new targets (each with their own marketing mixes) to the market segments already served. A classic example was Toyota’s Crown automobile entering the US market in 1956 with a niche strategy – a single marketing mix targeted at a single segment – economy conscious sub-compact auto buyers. After gaining a toehold in the market, it used segment expansion to go beyond its niche, offering brands for multiple segments, including the sub-compact, compact, mid-size, large size and sports-car segments. Ultimately targeting across-the-board, it aimed a marketing mix at virtually all auto and small truck market segments, and even developed the separate Lexus brand to target the luxury auto segment. Although also a form of segment expansion, it is useful to separate geographics from other forms of segmentation, such as demographics, psycho-graphics, sociographics, and behavioral characteristics. In geographic expansion, firms shift their sights from local, to regional, to national, to international, to global customer targets. This strategy is increasingly used when growth slows down as local (or domestic) markets approach maturity.

Similar to expanding segments, another strategic alternative in the growth stage involves brand expansion. This strategy adds new products or variations to the line, offering the customer segment more choice, or it provides additional services, such as delivery or gift wrapping, to offer customers greater value.

During the late growth stage, sales are still growing rapidly, but hit an inflection point where they shift from increasing at an accelerating rate to increasing at a

de-accelerating rate. In markets growing very rapidly, this shift in the rate of growth often produces a competitive turbulence (Wasson, 1974), in which an industry shake-out occurs, because of excess capacity. During this turbulence another strategy is often called for – a differentiation strategy. If not used in late growth, as firms jockey for advantage, then differentiation is often employed in the maturity stage, discussed next.

Market maturity strategies In maturity, sales growth slows, stabilizes and starts to decline. In early maturity, it is common to employ a maintenance strategy (BCG), where the firm maintains or holds a stable marketing mix. This is common in oligopoly industries, where a small number of firms hold a large share of the market. Satisfied with maintaining their market share and milking profits, these firms prefer not to rock the boat. If firms can preserve a rough equilibrium, a maintenance strategy could work until sales decline to meet costs. But maintenance is a rather passive strategy subject to a shake-up by an aggressive competitor.

If a firm wants to shuffle the deck, differentiation offers an aggressive but affordable strategy in maturity (Smith, Porter). It involves a firm using one or more elements of the marketing mix to enhance purchase value for its customers. For example, product quality could be improved, price lowered to offer greater economy, upscale advertising media employed to create more brand prestige or distribution outlets added to provide greater customer convenience. Although aggressive, differentiation is far less forceful and far less expensive than a penetration strategy. Because it involves more marketing mix finesse and need not be expensive, a differentiation strategy could work at virtually any stage of the life cycle, from growth into decline.

As a firm moves further along the maturity curve, a harvesting strategy (Henderson, 1970; Kotler, 1978) becomes an option if not a necessity. Typically, as a market shifts from early to late maturity, a maintenance strategy evolves into a harvesting strategy. In harvesting, marketing mix effort is reduced following the

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