Page 238 - (DK) The Business Book

236 UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS Every successful business...
Focused marketing
KEY DATES
1920s The concept of market
research emerges in the US.
1941 Robert K. Merton invents ...assesses the market
the idea of the focus group. ...gathers data about the environment—including
needs of its present and competitors, distributors,
1953 Peter Drucker says the
potential customers. the economy, technology,
first step for any business is to and social trends.
ask: “Who is the customer?”
1970 US economist Milton
Friedman puts forward the
business model of shareholder
maximization. It can then develop
the products that will
1998 Marketing professor solve customer problems,
Robert V. Kozinets coins the and so meet an
term “netnography” to refer to existing demand.
the theory of ethnography as
applied to Internet users.
1990 US professor Gerald
Zaltman develops the first
neuromarketing technology,
ZMET, to analyze consumers’
subconscious reactions to A product that fits the
advertising imagery. customer will sell itself.

o be successful in a market, core of this market is the prospective that consumers are struggling
an enterprise needs to customer, who will be influenced with. Once these are identified,
T understand both the by many of those environmental a business needs to respond
environment in which it wants factors, but will also be driven by innovatively, to deliver the products
to do business, and the way individual needs and preferences, and services that will be seen as
consumers in that environment which will affect what products perfect solutions.
think and act. The marketing and services he or she buys.
environment is the world beyond This means that to understand Gathering data
the confines of the organization— the market, a company must This analysis may sound simple,
the world that its customers live make sense of the “broad brush” but given that any particular
in—and includes the state of the of the external environment and, market might number thousands or
economy, government regulations, at the same time, fathom the millions of individuals, how does a
social attitudes, current issues, psychological profile and marketer go about understanding
competing companies, distribution personality of the consumer. The how those people think and
infrastructure and partnerships, end purpose of these investigations behave—let alone what problems or
and technological changes. At the is to identify the biggest problems unfulfilled wants they have, both