Dole: Analyzing the Marketing Environment

Read the overview below and complete the activities that follow.

Information is power speaks to the importance of good information in decision making. Companies realize the right information at the right time and in the right format is essential for decision makers. Dole is constantly analyzing the environment to make sure their marketing message is on target. As the video plays, answer the questions that appear.

This activity is important because marketing managers need to be aware of changes in the external environment that may represent new opportunities or threats for the organization. In particular, marketing managers need to be able to recognize and understand shifts in consumer attitudes and preferences in order to develop new marketing strategies that are well adapted to changing conditions. Effective market research can enable marketing managers to identify and understand changing conditions and determine how effective potential marketing strategies under consideration might be.

The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate an understanding of the market research process and different sources of information relevant to marketing by considering the application of concepts related to both in the context of a company-specific example.

Marketers are usually the ones entrusted with scanning the environment for changes that might affect the organization. As a result, creating procedures that collect, analyze, and access relevant information is a critical part of marketing management. Staying connected to the business environment is no longer optional. Success is based, in part, on both the quality and quantity of information available to management. As a result, most companies engage in collecting, analyzing, and storing data from the macro environment on a continuous basis known as marketing intelligence.

Click the? button to watch the video. Then, answer the questions that follow.

Customers tend to value _____________ over nutrition.

Multiple Choice

• simplicity

• convenience

• difficulty

• expediency

What is the age of the target market for Raleigh bikes in the UK? One theory is that in counties where mountain bikes are more popular, the mean age of their customers is older than in counties where relatively little mountain biking is done. In an attempt to test this theory, a random sample of Cumbrian customers is taken along with a random sample of customers in Essex. The ages for these customers are given here. The customer is defined as ‘the person for whom the bike is primarily purchased’. The shape of the population distribution of bicycle customer ages is unknown. Analyse the data and discuss the implications for Raleigh manufacturing and sales.