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MKT 302 Project
Special Research Hints
Needs and Trends in the Marketing Environment
 
 While the majority of the hot links provided got to web sites, some of the links on this page lead you to the appropriate pages where the specific item mentioned is found along with similar information sources listed in the Company & Industry Research Subject Guide and the Marketing Resources Subject Guide.

Each section of this assignment asks what action your company is taking on the specific environment. Not all companies are actually doing something about each one of these areas. Those are the companies that may have or will have marketing challenges.

Special Note on Statistics:  Statistics can be put on a map through the GIS service available in the MAP COLLECTION.


A. Demographic Environment


It is a given that the MKT 302 project will focus on a US target market.

This section requires that you compare the total population to the population of the type of product users and to the population of the users of your brand.  You must understand your product or service well enough to decide if the product/service is used by households or by individuals.  Demographic information for most durable goods and financial services make more sense to have by households (example: washing machines).

    The rest of the information needed to support your interpretation of the statistics and to comment on your brand's (or company's, if no brand specific information found) reactions to trends come from articles indexed in the databases listed on the MKT 302 General Research Stratgies page.


B. Economic Environment

This section requires that, as non-economists, you will rely on the articles written by economists for the newspapers. Each month the US Government releases many economic indicators. This assignment specifically needs the CPI (Consumer Price Index), Consumer Confidence, credit card usage (Consumer Installment Credit), and Savings rate.  The Federal Reserve changes in interest rate do have an important impact on comsumer loans, but also has a significant impact on the availablity of credit for the company.

For your 5 year trend of these indicators, use the analysis in the January issues of the newspapers for the last 5 years plus the monthly analysis for every month since January.  These articles are not indexed very well, so by relying on the approximate release date (there is a 5 day window of earliest & latest release dates) for each economic indicator, browse the first page of the Wall Street Journal for those dates for every January and the other months.

To see tables of the statistics without much commentary:


For how people spend their money CLICK HERE


C. & D.  Natural & Technological Environments

The information needed to support your interpretation of what you find and to comment on your brand's (or company's, if no brand specific information found) reactions to these situations and trends come from articles indexed in the databases listed on the MKT 302 General Research Stratgies page.

  1. Articles for this section are also found in more specialized indexes.  Use the industry,  product class name, commodity, or type of packaging/manufacturing process. Bioengineering, genetics, farming, etc. can be new commercial technologies for some products.
  2. For this class, the cost and availability of commodities should be limited to the PRIMARY raw material (commodity) of your product not all the ingredients that might go into it. Consider if your ingredients must be imported from other countries and how that might be affected by the weather, politics, or war. Concentrate on the pattern of cost & availability of the commodity over the last 5 years.

    If your product has plastic as a main component, you may need to contact the company to find out what type of plastics or polymers are used in your product.  Many plastics are made from crude oil. If this is the case, then whatever happens to the world oil situation will impact your product.
  3. Ideally you will find articles that talk about your brand's role in ecology and pollution, but most teams will find that pollution and conservation, if they are discussed at all, are discussed a the corporate level.
    • BEST SOURCES:
      • Annual Report of your company
      • Advertisements: Examples of pollution and conservation are most readily seen in advertisements by oil companies and chemical & pharmaceutical companies. (eg. "Making the world a better place...")
      • Industrial accidents/disaster articles found by using:
      • Social Responsibility and Ecology

  4. Technological/ecologcial changes to product classes and in manufacturing processes are often found in articles, but without the background on the process itself it may be hard to tell.
    • BEST SOURCES:
      • Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology
      • How products are made : an illustrated guide to product manufacturing (TS 183 .H69x SCIENCE REFERENCE, Hayden Reference & West Reference)
      • Pesticide manufacturing and toxic materials control encyclopedia (TP 248 .P47 S52 1980 SCIENCE REFERENCE)

  5. Your brand or company position in new technologies may only be found indirectly by looking through periodical indexes for openings of new facilities (plants), except office space.
  6. Consider if generic substitutes can replace your product. (happens most frequently in a slow economy.) The "generic" term can be very, very broad. (example: walking or bicycling instead of driving)  A substitute is anything that can be used instead of your product. Don't forget that it is possible to refuse & do without nearly any specific product or service. Watch out for products that could be unused if social values changed. (Perfume use declined with increased bathing and the use of deodorants.  What if society gave them up?)  Laws can also change the use or availabliltiy of products and substitutes.


E: Political/Legal Environment
  1. FirstGov  (gateway to federal agencies and information)
  2. For pending or new laws and legislation on the Federal level:
  3. State level discussions on these public policy issues are of interest for this assignment only because some states are leading the national discussion. Most projects will not need this. Should you need this:
  4. Any lawsuit or government agency (usually FDA, CDC, USDA, EPA, FTC, FCC) action is automatically of interest in this section. These actions almost always have economic and financial impacts. There may also be cultural or social ramifications. Federal agency acronyms can be searched as keywords.
F: Social/Cultural Environment

This section requires that you look in the indexes for terms such as fashion trends, health, physical fitness, etc. Most of what goes in this area is NOT found by using the company name or the industry. Hot social issues such as animal rights, employee rights, and consumer issues can be used in this section if your company is embroiled in the public debate.

Not everyone will find articles telling you the current public attitude towards your company or product unless there has been a recent negative incident: oil spills (Exxon), blackouts (electrical utilites), financial problems (Enron), poisoning (Pepsi, Tylenol), etc. There are positive articles, usually related to a good deed, charity project, gift or grant of the company, but good news is written about much less frequently.

G. Recommendations
You are on your own for this.  Your team MUST talk this out and decide on recommendations to make.  This section cannot be taken from any source other than yourselves.

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