Consumer warfare: implications for marketing strategy

Abstract

The concept of marketing warfare became popular in response to the environment of the 1970s and 1980s. With an economic slowdown and stagnation of population growth in developed countries, businesses could no longer grow merely as a byproduct of a growing economy or a growing population as they could in the 1950s and 1960s. Instead, growth had to be pursued at the expense of other businesses -the competition. In the midst of this competitive reality, a focus on the competition appeared essential and the concept of marketing warfare gained wide adherence (Cohen, 1986). Marketing warfare consists of applying the well-proven strategies of the battlefield to the field of marketing. Competitors are viewed as ''enemies'' and strategies employed for millennia on the battlefield (see von Clausewitz, 1966) are applied to dealings with competitors. The evidence indicates that marketing warfare was very successful as a competitive tool (Ries and Trout, 1986).Today's business climate bears little relation to that of the 1970s and 1980s, likely mitigating the effectiveness of the strategies dictated by marketing warfare (Economist, 2005). The business environment of the twenty-first century no longer consists of manufacturers competing among themselves for business, with other business entities, such as retailers, merely acting as components of the supply chain. Instead, some suggest (e.g. Hughes, 2007) that power has shifted down the marketing channel so much that the marketplace today can best be described as a place where powerful consumers compete among themselves. Within this environment of the ''empowered consumer,'' interaction among consumers may be the preferred perspective for viewing the marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of strategies employed by empowered consumers and explore how businesses can relate to each. Changes in the business environmentMany of the most profound changes occurring in the business environment over the past few decades involve shifts of the distribution of power in channels of distribution. Several contend a shift in power has occurred -retailers have significantly increased their power relative to other channel members (e.g. Raju and Zhang, 2005). Consequently, if a single large retailer (e.g. Wal-Mart, Macy's, Home Depot) chooses not to carry a particular product, that manufacturer is locked out of a substantial proportion of the market. The shift of channel power from manufacturers to retailers lessens the effectiveness of marketing warfare. Further, the success of marketing warfare also appears to have lessened at the retail level since increasingly fickle and independent consumers are not in a position to be ''controlled'' as they arguably were by manufacturers in previous decades. Instead, retailers and manufacturers alike have to better understand the needs and motivations of consumers. Many consumers today find themselves in a culture characterized by materialism, where materialism is no longer just a part of the lives of most individuals, materialism ...

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