Mass Marketing and Micromarketing - Assignment Example

Wine and alcohol sales offer much higher profit margins than food. This is Micromarketing, because it pertains to choices affecting market segments that the restaurant will cater to. Micromarketing is ‘one-to-one’ marketing (Donovan, 2005); essentially, marketing techniques regarding market segments and individual customers. Here, his marketing style will cost the restaurateur; he will lose a large market segment that enjoys wine with food. Furthermore, he will lose sales volumes and consequent profits.

Profits will dip sans high profit margin alcohol sale.Scenario 2 A sole tourist is launched into orbit for a fee of $20 million dollars. The flight is not conducted solely for the benefit of the tourist as scientific research takes place. Furthermore, the $20 million fees can be used to fund future research or to help underwrite the cost of future flights. This is Macro marketing, it looks at the effect marketing has on society and vice versa by research. (Mick, Bateman and Lutz, 2009). In this case, the marketing is not ‘costing too much’ because it will reap future benefits, also the money spent can be utilized in the future to fund further scientific research and cover other costs in the process.

Scenario 3 A retailer has to mark the price down below cost to unload inventory. Does this suggest that the initial pricing wasn’t competitive, and/or that the marketing mix as a whole was ineffective? Perhaps failure in part is due to the purchase of a poorly designed product or a product that doesn’t meet the clienteles’ needs. Alternately, it may be that the store’s advertising didn’t reach or influence the appropriate target market. Finally, failure may have resulted from the retailer’s inattention to the competitive environment.

These are Micromarketing issues relating to the marketing mix and other micro issues such as product design, advertising, targeting market segments, ineffective competitive measures, etc. Former mix and strategy would have cost the retailer because the inventory wasn’t selling. However, the situation can be corrected if Micromarketing is proper. Scenario 4 Coupons are offered on specific products. While critics of marketing would argue that promotion in general is socially undesirable, and would point to the influence of coupons on purchase behavior as well as the negative consequences of that behavior (purchase of lower quality product) as justification for why marketing activities in general should be banned, or at least controlled to a higher degree.

What are your thoughts? This is Macromarketing, for it pertains to how advertising, coupons and other marketing measures affect consumer behavior, society and it’s good. It helps the society “adapt to its material environment” (Dixon, 1984). Promotion is socially desirable because it helps disseminate information among the target market and coupons are beneficial because they provide incentive for purchase. Marketing activities are aimed at better acquainting the customer with the product and are thus more good than evil and therefore shouldn’t be banned.