Reflective Analysis Marketing Assignment Article 1: The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Trends in 2019 The following article explored within this study of marketing assignment relates to the changing face of business today. Since change is inevitable, businesses must have the ability to master and exploit change in order to maintain a consistency of image (Decker, 2019). Each day, marketers come up with new trends and techniques to attract and connect with their audiences. However, the issue lies in understanding the feasibility and longevity of the trends and techniques. According to Hall (2016), every industry is keeping up with developments but also cares about following the market trends to remain one step ahead in the game. Successful businesses follow the most significant marketing trends in the scope of their businesses. History shows that companies that are reluctant to adapt to their environment and current marketing trends will disappear. As the whole business environment is changing, it is important for businesses to understand that creating or following marketing trends is not enough, but they must also understand their customer preferences and needs. The issues illustrated in this article are a good illustration of importance of acknowledging the impact of marketing trends on businesses. As opined by Ordun (2015), marketing trends are heavily influenced by consumer behavior and their preferences and can have direct impact on the overall performance of the business. As highlighted in the marketing assignment, marketing trends allows businesses to know
their target audience, secure a strong marketplace, and stay up to date with the consumer behavior and priorities (Decker, 2019). The frequent changes in the marketing world allow businesses to adapt to the developments and equip with adequate knowledge. However, general marketing trends are not always sufficient to effectively reach out to the target customers. The marketing capabilities of any company decide its fate in the long run. Trends help businesses to identify better ideas to improve the overall performance. The important thing to notice is that marketing trends provides with early warnings that is helpful for businesses to understand if these trends are reliable business needs to discover more reliable sources of changes. The current and future trends applicable for any business must be improved to quickly predict what is expected to happen tomorrow. Mehta (2018) suggests that businesses are not only relying on general marketing trends but also have adopted trends like social media marketing trends, content marketing Search Engine Optimization marketing trends, technology marketing trends and trends. When the brand image of a company required itself to grow bigger in the marketplace, it needs to feature it's creative ideas and innovative thinking through their content, social engagement, influence on target market, technology being used and ways to being responsive to their audience. Therefore, in order to acknowledge the ever-changing marketing environment, businesses must conduct trend analysis to compare data over a set period of time, the consistency of changing trends and aligning them with achievement of the goals of the company. As mentioned earlier change is inevitable, businesses must absorb up to date industry research and the real picture of where they currently stand in the marketplace. As per Uzialko (2018), most successful businesses do not follow random marketing trends, but they understand the nature of their business and accordingly innovate to reach out to the target audience.
Article 2: Research: Actually, Consumers Do Buy Sustainable Products The following article discussed within this marketing assignment is related to the misconception of consumers while buying sustainable products (Whelan & KronthalSacco, 2019). It has been observed that aware of sustainable development and use of sustainable products, but they do not seem to buy sustainable products. The reason is they are not aware of what sustainable products actually mean or did not have the intention to buy sustainable products. However, as opined by Dangelico & Vocalelli (2017), marketers have utilized this as an opportunity to sell their products under the light of sustainability. The concept of going sustainable has been new for many of the consumers. This wisdom has been taken by companies as they can expect healthy return on investment by providing environmental and socially sustainable products and practices. Sustainability has become a new way of life for many of consumers as their efforts are directed towards purchasing healthy and greener options from companies which label themselves as selling green products. Each purchase made by a single consumer impacts their health, the environment and supports the sustainable practices around them. According to the article by Whelan & Kronthal-Sacco (2019), meaning of the consumers are still unaware of healthy and sustainable products. This results in the purchase of consumer-packaged goods that has increased over the last 5 years. Companies claim on pack that their products are healthy and market them as sustainable products which eventually cells at a faster rate than the normal products. The reason being, consumers are willing to pay more money for sustainable products rather than eating anything unhealthy. According to Ghvanidze, Velikova, Dodd & Oldewage-Theron (2016), consumers have become health conscious and understand the importance of living a healthy life which has resulted substantial growth in the market for companies selling sustainable products. According to Whelan & Kronthal-Sacco (2019), products like
facial tissues, yoghurt, milk, salty snacks, bottled juices, and toilet tissue are claimed to be highly in demand as consumers want these products to be highly sustainable. These products account to hold largest share of sustainability marketed products followed by chocolate candy and laundry cares. However, products like sanitary napkins, products containing plastic, and laundry cares are required to be made sustainable as much as possible. Companies have their corporate social responsibilities which we must follow the rule of being environmentally responsible and reducing the carbon footprint. At an individual or personal level, becoming more responsible towards the environment and have started setting great examples by making responsible buying choices. Consumers are becoming responsible and object on buying unsustainable brands which has shifted the core of several companies to adopt sustainable practices. Since consumers are most important assets for any company, they must consider the changing consumer tastes and attitude. As opined by Helsen (2018), there can be criticism from stakeholders and investors for shifting their attitude and marketing techniques that has worked well for them. It is also important for companies to understand the nature of changing business environment and reinvent their marketing strategies and legacy products. As consumers are becoming health conscious, creating sustainable products will allow them to deliver better products and generate high turnover growth. The perception of brand managers needs to change as consumers are also shifting towards purchase of products that are greener, healthier and come from greener companies.
References Dangelico, R. M., & Vocalelli, D. (2017). “Green Marketing�: an analysis of definitions, strategy steps, and tools through a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Cleaner production, 165, 1263-1279. Decker, A. (2019). The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Trends in 2019. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-trends Ghvanidze, S., Velikova, N., Dodd, T. H., & Oldewage-Theron, W. (2016). Marketing assignment Consumers' environmental and ethical consciousness and the use of the related food products information: The role of perceived consumer effectiveness. Appetite, 107, 311-322. Hall, J. (2016). 7 Ways to Identify and Evolve With Industry Trends. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/john-hall/7-ways-to-identify-and-evolve-with-industry-trends.html Helsen, K. (2018). Sustainable Marketing Strategies: Overview. Mehta, S. (2018). Social media marketing trends 2019. Retrieved from https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/socialmedia-marketing-trends-2019/ Ordun, G. (2015). Millennial (Gen Y) consumer behavior their shopping preferences and perceptual maps associated with brand loyalty. Canadian Social Science, 11(4), 40-55. Uzialko, A.C. (2018). 20 Small Business Trends and Predictions for 2019. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7605-business-trend-predictions.html
Whelan, T. & Kronthal-Sacco, R. (2019). Research: Actually, Consumers Do Buy Sustainable Products. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/06/research-actuallyconsumers-do-buy-sustainable-products