chapter 2

strategic planning In Contemporary Marketing

Chapter Overview

Today’s marketers face strategic questions every day. Planning strategy is a critical part of their jobs. The marketplace changes continually in response to changes in consumer tastes and expectations, technological developments, competitors’ actions, economic trends, and political and legal events, as well as product innovations and pressures from suppliers and distributors.

Although the causes of these changes often lie outside a marketer’s control, effective planning can anticipate many of them. For example when the price of gas and jet fuel soared recently, travelers opted to stay close to home instead of enjoying vacations to exotic, faraway places. This represented an opportunity for places like Ocean City, Maryland, and Branson, Missouri. Any destinations that promoted itself to potential vacationers within a short drive could find itself adding up the profits.

This chapter lays a foundation for analyzing all aspects of marketing by demonstrating the importance of gathering reliable information to create an effective plan. These activities provide a structure for a firm to use its unique strengths. Marketing planning identifies the markets a company can best serve as well as the most appropriate mix of approaches to satisfy the customers in those markets. While this chapter focuses on planning, in later chapters the task of marketing research and decision making will be explored.

Changes in the Updated Edition

The chapter has been updated and revised, with new features in several areas:

• The Opening Vignette and Evolution of a Brand discuss search engine giant Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a division of Motorola that holds 17,000 mobile tech patents and has 7,500 more patents pending. Google’s stated strategy for the acquisition, the largest in