Profiling Contemporary Marketing Practice Jaqueline Pels, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella 1- Overview 2- Cross-National Results Incorporating e-Marketing 4 - Cross-National Results 2001 Market Orientation & Performance 5- Conclusions and Implications

1- Contemporary Marketing Practice (CMP) Research Programme CMP research project was started in NZ in 1996  extended to Canada, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Argentina, Thailand, UK, Germany, USA, SE Asia, Africa… Objective? “profile marketing practice in a contemporary environment, and to examine the relevance of relational marketing in different organizational, economic and cultural contexts” Synthesis of:  European, North American, Australasian & Latin thinking  qualitative and quantitative methods

Contrasting Views of How Firms Relate to their Markets Transactional (AMA 1985) “….the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchange, and satisfy individual and organizational objectives”. Relational (e.g. Berry 1983) “attracting, maintaining and …enhancing customer relationships” … need for a richer framework that incorporates both transactional and relational aspects of marketing

Developing Pluralistic View of Marketing Practice (Coviello, Brodie and Munro 1997) Classification scheme developed from an extensive review of North American and European literature Transaction Marketing (TM)  managing the 4P’s to attract and satisfy customers Database Marketing (DM)  using technology-based tools to target and retain customers Interaction Marketing (IM)  developing interpersonal relationships between individual buyers and sellers Network Marketing (NM)  positioning the firm in a connected set of inter-firm relationships

Aspects of Marketing - Relational Exchange Dimensions

Aspects of Marketing - Managerial Dimensions

Research Questions? At a general level...  To what extent are transactional and relational marketing practiced across countries? More specifically…  Do the findings generalize for economies that are either similar or different in terms of:  economic development

Method  participants required to fulfill the questionnaire as part of course work  structured survey instrument measuring marketing practices  feedback sessions to ensure validity of results  instrument administered in English to participants from executive management programs  pre-tested to ensure questions understood  controls for demographic differences

Sample  Group 1: Advanced Economies [New Zealand (185), Canada (94), Finland /Sweden (51)]  economies well developed  Group 2: Transition Economies [Argentina (96), Thailand (55)]  economies in transition  firms range in size, age, growth rate, ownership, level of export activity, use of technology, and sector  consumer goods (15-28%), consumer services, (15-25%),  B2B goods (22-38%), B2B services (26-43%)

2- Cross National Results,2000 Aspects of Marketing Practiced ( Firms with Medium to High Levels)

Which Combinations? Transaction Marketing Interaction Marketing Network Marketing Database Marketing

Are There Differences Across Firm Types? 3 clusters Transactional (T), Tranasactional/Relational (TR), Relational (R) BUT all types of firms have membership in all three clusters and 40% of all firms fall into the TR cluster some country specific differences e.g. tendency for more firms from Argentina to be in the T cluster

Which Combinations? higher %’s of consumer goods firms in T cluster Transaction Marketing Interaction Marketing Network Marketing Database Marketing

Which Combinations? higher %’s of consumer service firms in T and TR clusters Transaction Marketing Interaction Marketing Network Marketing Database Marketing

Which Combinations? higher %’s of B2B goods and service firms in R and TR clusters Transaction Marketing Interaction Marketing Network Marketing Database Marketing

3- Incorporating Interactive e- Marketing into the CMP Framework  Ongoing conceptual development/refinement:  instrument now has a 5 th aspect  e-Marketing eM  interactive technologies to create and mediate dialogues  testing of the new instrument in UK, NZ and Germany

“Interactive”: The Early Views  As discussed by Blattberg and Deighton (1991)  used synonymously with the term ‘database’ marketing  builds on traditional approaches available through the mail, telephone, and sales force  a medium for 2-way conversation: the consumer ‘speaks’ through purchases and the manufacturer employs artificial intelligence to reply (e.g. loyalty programs)

More Recent Views  the ability to address an individual, gather and remember the response of that individual, and address the individual once more in a way that takes into account his/her unique response (Deighton 1996)  a form of marketing with the following qualities (Iacobucci 1998)  Content: technology, intrinsic motivation, use of interactive marketing information, real time  Structural: private, truly interactive, interactions among groups (incl. customers), networked networks  “...the use of information from the customer rather than about the customer.” (Day 1998, p.47)  often discussed in the context of the Internet

Relational Exchange Dimensions (adapted from Coviello et al 1997, Milley 1998)

Managerial Dimensions (adapted from Coviello et al 1997, Milley 1998)

4 - Cross-National Results 2001 Market Orientation & Performance  48 New Zealand, 84 UK & 61 Argentine Firms  vary in size, age, growth rate, type of product offered, type of market served, use of technology, export level, ownership structure  As before partial correlations show very clear relationships  DM practiced with TM  IM practiced with NM  Interactive Marketing provide linkage between DM and IM/NM

Overview: Aspects of Marketing Practice 2001

Which Combinations?

Argentina New Zealand UK

Market Orientation

Performance measurements used

Expected Performance

Summary of Key Findings  managers of all types of organisations are placing an emphasis on managing marketing relationships  need to focus more on issues and trends which are shaping the future  understanding of the IT in supporting, enhancing and transforming  dangers of focusing too much on traditional dichotomous thinking ie Goods vs Services, Consumer vs B2B, transactional vs relational  the distinction between goods and services is not the point  service aspect of products provide competitive advantage

The Argentine Sample