Introduction
Marketing in an integral part in product development as it creates awareness of the existence of a products or service in the market; the initial stage in developing a marketing strategy is marketing research. There are different approaches to a marketing research; they need to be combined when making a marketing strategy.
Nancarrow, C., Tinson, J., & Webber, 2007, in their article, Roots marketing the marketing research opportunity, featured in the journal; International Journal of Market Research, 49(1), 47-69, discuses the positive effects that can be attained by an approach of root marketing. This paper analysis the above named marketing research article.
Article review
The article starts by giving an overview of current market situation in the world as facilitated by globalisation; it is of the opinion that marketing goes further than selling, advertising and creating awareness to include company-customer relations; tap to effectively the market, a company need to understand the culture of the country that he is likely to sell the products. On page 47, the article states that there is a large effect of a countries, target market, and market segment culture on marketing strategy.
Through marketing, a company learns the deficit that a certain industry has, and then endeavour to produce goods to meet the demand in the market. When developing a marketing strategy: the initial stage is conduction a marketing research; marketing research may starts before a company has created the products required in the market, or may be introduced at any stage of a product cycle.
The research is never a onetime phenomenon but continues through the product cycle. Understanding the culture, the roots and the values of the market that a company is going venture assists in developing a marketing strategy; on page 51, the writers are of the opinion that one’s identity affects the choice of the products that he is going to buy. They are of the opinion that understanding cultural behaviour of a society assists a company develops appropriate marketing strategies.
On page 53, the writers are of the opinion that before developing of products marketing research main objective is to recognise a deficit that the current products in the market are not meeting, and developing product that can fill the gap. The deficit can be well interpolated by understanding the culture, roots and values of a people.
To advertise effectively, products must be seen to go inline with the target population culture, values, beliefs and social norms. Markets should undertake a research of the target market in Diaspora and seek to establish the strong links that people have on certain areas or objects; an understanding of the market Diaspora assists in developing appropriate marketing strategy (Nancarrow, Tinson & Webber, 2007).
To effectively market in the diverse culture with different values, norms and beliefs, companies need to develop cultural intelligence programs. They are management tools within an organisational psychology that emphasises that understanding an individual, group, communal and national culture to develop appropriate marketing strategies. When a company is developing products, it is important to understand the roots of the people who are going to use the products.
This calls for a close interaction between the marketers and the target market. Culture of a people influences the capacity for a business to engage successfully in a certain environment.
According cultural intelligence theory as portrayed by the article, human behaviour is to a large extent and element of their culture, consumer behaviour, attitude, beliefs, suppliers and country of origin perception has an influence on business. Cultural intelligence thus emphasises on the need to understand the psychodynamics in a certain target market; the understanding will assist in decision making for a successful business (Hampden–Turner & Trompenaars, 2006).
When marketing research is initiated in course of operation, the main objective is to understand market dynamics and get information that can assist the company in its positioning in the market. Market dynamics are effects of culture of a people; they are affected by social and psychological attributes that can be understood with an effective market analysis.
When a root marketing research is undertaken, it aims at giving rich information on product differentiation, product rejuvenation strategy, advertising approach/tools and product development. When developing a marketing strategy, a company should aims developing a strategy that will give maximum results at the minimum cost possible; thus for an effective marketing strategy, timely, organized and relevant information is required.
Market information is crucial when developing a marketing strategy; there is need to understand the culture of the target market to predict consumer trends and general situation in the market effectively. After data has been collected, it needs to be interpolated and reports made that are responsive to the situation at hand and offer rich decision-making information.
Conclusion
Market research has the role of collecting, interpolating, analyzing and storing internal and external data; culture of a target population assists in prediction consumer behaviour for an effective marketing strategies. Culture-market research starts with a desk research where marketers use the available secondary materials to understand the culture of the market segment; information from secondary sources assists in building a strong start point for primary data collection.
References
Hampden–Turner, C. & Trompenaars, F.(2006).Cultural Intelligence: Is Such a Capacity Credible? Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 56-63.
Nancarrow, C., Tinson, J., & Webber, R. (2007). Roots marketing: the marketing research opportunity. International Journal of Market Research, 49(1), 47-69.