396 The Marketing Book
Discipline overlap is blurring long standing
distinctions. It’s becoming increasingly difficult
to categorize work as sales promotion or direct
marketing. Most direct marketing offers contain
some form of sales promotion or vice versa.
And with the growth of direct response press
and TV advertising, direct marketing is moving
closer to conventional advertising.
(Cook, 1994)The strategic challenges facing organizations
Marketing and, for that matter, marketing
communications are being readdressed by
major corporations to determine the values
which they derive from the adoption of their
principles. Indeed, the very nature of these
principles is being challenged and re-evaluated
to determine their relevance to the challenges
being faced by companies at the start of the
new millennium.
Nilson (1992) suggested that marketing
had ‘lost its way’. Despite employing high-
quality management, organizations have in
many instances seemed unable to face the
challenges which they face in the broader
environment. Growth has come more from
acquisition than brand development. The con-
sequence of chasing niche markets has been the
continued and growing failure of new products
to attract substantial and profitable audiences.
The continued growth of private label products
in a wide variety of market sectors evidences
the fact that retailers are often more successful
in their identification and satisfaction of con-
sumer needs. New and innovative competitors
have stolen share from the large multinational
FMCG companies, despite their comparatively
smaller scale, which should have precluded
their entry into the market.
The essential requirement of the ‘new
marketing’ approach is the development of a
close customer focus throughout the organiza-
tion which, in turn, demands an understanding
of customers as individuals in order to appre-
ciate their perceptions, expectations, needs and
wants. The increasing availability of tools to
enable the marketer to achieve this deeper
understanding of the consumer similarly
demands the re-evaluation of the ways in
which the tools employed to communicate with
those consumers are used.Strategic marketing communications
Schultz et al. (1992) argue that marketing
communications often present the only differ-
entiating feature that can be offered to potential
consumers. By recognizing the fact that every-
thing a company does comprises, in some form,
part of the communication which takes place
between itself and its customers, it becomes
aware of the increasingly important role of
marketing communications as a strategic tool.
Just as the premise of the ‘new marketing’
places the consumer at the centre of all activity,
so too must marketing communications be
considered from the essential perspective of
understanding consumer behaviour. This
implies a consideration of more than just the
content of the message itself. Close attention
needs to be paid to the context of the message
(the vehicle used to communicate with the target
audience), as well as the timing and tone of the
message. The underlying imperative is the need
for an identification of clear, concise and meas-
urable communications objectives which will
enable the selection of the appropriate commu-
nications tools to achieve the tasks set.
By developing an understanding of the
identity of the consumer, and their particular
needs and wants, we can determine the nature
of the behaviour which the communications
programme will need to reinforce or change.
And, in turn, the specific nature of the message
which will affect that behaviour, and the means
by which we can reach them.