Marketing Fundamentals: Core Concepts, Strategy, Consumer Behaviour, and Global Markets

Comprehensive practice flashcards defining essential vocabulary and frameworks across introductory marketing, organizational strategies, environmental scanning, buyer behaviour, and global markets.

Marketing

The activity for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that benefit the organization, its stakeholders, and society at large.

Requirements for Marketing to Occur

The four conditions necessary for marketing: (1) two or more parties with unsatisfied needs, (2) desire and ability to be satisfied, (3) a way for the parties to communicate, and (4) something to exchange.

Ultimate Consumers

The people who use the products and services purchased for a household.

Customer Value Proposition

The cluster of benefits that an organization promises customers to satisfy their needs.

Utility

The benefits or customer value received by users of a product.

Target Market

The specific group or groups of potential consumers toward which an organization directs its marketing program.

Marketing Mix (Four Ps)

The four controllable elements—Product, Price, Promotion, and Place—used by a marketing manager to develop a cohesive marketing program.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The process of identifying prospective buyers, understanding them intimately, and developing favorable long-term perceptions of the organization and its offerings so that buyers will choose them in the marketplace.

Societal Marketing Concept

The view that organizations should satisfy the needs of consumers in a way that provides for society's well-being.

Strategic Business Unit (SBU)

The level in an organization where business unit managers set the strategic direction for their specific products and markets.

Organizational Culture

The set of values, ideas, and attitudes learned and shared among members of an organization that connects customers and stakeholders internally and externally.

Strategy

An organization's long-term course of action designed to deliver a unique customer experience while achieving its goals.

Product-Market Growth Matrix

A framework identifying four growth strategies based on market and product combinations: Market Penetration, Product Development, Market Development, and Diversification.

Market Penetration

A growth strategy focused on selling more of an organization's existing products in existing markets.

Market Development

A growth strategy focused on selling existing products in new markets, either through geographic expansion or targeting new consumer segments.

Product Development

A growth strategy focused on developing and selling new products in existing markets.

Diversification

A growth strategy focused on developing and selling entirely new products in entirely new markets.

Strategic Marketing Process

The approach whereby an organization allocates its marketing mix resources to reach target markets, divided into three phases: Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation/Control (P.I.E.).

SWOT Analysis

An assessment of an organization's internal Strengths and Weaknesses alongside its external Opportunities and Threats.

Environmental Scanning

The process of continually acquiring information on events occurring outside the organization to identify and interpret potential trends.

PESTEL Framework

An analytical model used to examine external environmental forces: Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal.

Gross Income

The total amount of money made in one year by a person, household, or family unit.

Disposable Income

The money a consumer has left over after paying taxes.

Discretionary Income

The money a consumer has left over after paying taxes and paying for basic necessities such as housing, food, transportation, and clothing.

Multicultural Marketing

Combinations of the marketing mix that reflect unique attitudes, ancestry, communication preferences, and lifestyles of ethnic consumer segments.

Consumer Behaviour

The actions a person takes in purchasing and using products and services, including the mental and social processes that come before and after these actions.

Consumer Purchase Decision Process

The five stages a consumer travels through when making a purchase: Problem recognition, Information search, Alternative evaluation, Purchase decision, and Postpurchase behavior.

Problem Recognition

The initial stage in the consumer purchase decision process where a person perceives a significant difference between their ideal situation and their actual situation.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A motivation model ordering human needs into five tiers: Physiological needs, Safety needs, Social needs, Personal needs, and Self-actualization needs.

Consideration Set (Evoked Set)

The group of acceptable alternative brands yielded from a consumer's retrieval set and prominent environmental options that are evaluated during a purchase decision.

Multiattribute Attitude Model

A model designed to predict a customer's evaluation of an offering based on its performance on relevant attributes and the importance weight of those attributes.

Involvement

A motivational construct representing the personal, social, and economic perceived relevance of an object based on one's needs, values, and interests.

Extended Problem Solving

A purchase decision mode characterized by high consumer involvement where many brands, sellers, and product attributes are evaluated using extensive information sources.

Routine Problem Solving

A purchase decision mode for frequent, low-risk purchases where consumers examine one brand, evaluate one attribute, and spend minimal time searching.

Atmospherics

The design of an environment via visual communications, lighting, colours, music, and scent to stimulate customers' perceptual and emotional responses and affect purchase behaviour.

Cognitive Dissonance

The postpurchase psychological tension that arises after a buying decision, causing consumers to seek reassurance to resolve the tension.

Motivational Conflict

Psychological tension arising when goals clash, categorized into approach-approach, approach-avoidance, and avoidance-avoidance conflicts.

Approach-Avoidance Conflict

A motivational conflict occurring when a consumer is attracted to a positive product outcome while simultaneously dreading an associated negative consequence.

Classical Conditioning

A behavioural learning process in which a stimulus that elicits a response is repeatedly paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own.

Stimulus Generalization

The tendency for stimuli that are similar to a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses, leveraged in family branding, product line extensions, and look-alike packaging.

Instrumental Conditioning

A behavioural learning process where an individual learns to perform behaviours that yield positive outcomes (rewards) and avoid those that yield negative outcomes.

Absolute Threshold

The minimum amount of stimulation that can be detected on a sensory channel, distinguishing something from nothing.

Just Noticeable Difference (JND)

The minimum difference that can be detected between two stimuli by a sensory system.

Weber's Law

The psychological principle stating that the stronger the initial stimulus, the greater the additional intensity needed for the second stimulus to be perceived as different.

ABC Model of Attitudes

A framework stating that an attitude is composed of three parts: Affect (feelings), Behaviour (intentions/actions), and Cognition (beliefs).

Global Localization

A global marketing strategy that mixes standardization and customization to minimize costs while maximizing local consumer satisfaction ('think globally, act locally').

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country during one year.

Balance of Trade

The difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and its imports.

Protectionism

The practice of shielding one or more domestic industries from foreign competition through the implementation of tariffs or quotas.

Tariff

A government tax imposed on goods entering a country that raises prices on foreign imports to protect domestic industries.

Quota

A government limit placed on the amount of a product allowed to enter or leave a country.

Transnational Firm

A global business entity that emphasizes a consistent global brand identity while maintaining operational flexibility to adapt to local cultural differences.

Economic Espionage

The illegal or unethical collection of trade secrets or proprietary commercial information about a company's competitors.

Physical Culture

The tangible, material aspects of a society's way of living, including artifacts such as clothing, tools, decorative art, body adornment, and homes.

Abstract Culture

The intangible, nonmaterial components of a society, such as religion, perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and values.

High-Context Culture

A culture where communication heavily relies on the situational background, personal reputation, societal status, and basic values rather than explicit paperwork.

Low-Context Culture

A culture where words carry explicit information and transactions rely heavily on formal legal paperwork and documentation.

Exporting

A global market-entry strategy in which a company produces goods in one country and sells them in another with minimal organizational change.

Licensing

A global market-entry strategy in which a company grants the rights to a trademark, patent, or trade secret to a foreign manufacturer in exchange for a fee or royalty.

Joint Venture

A market-entry strategy where a foreign firm and a local firm invest together to create a new local business, sharing ownership, control, and profits.

Direct Investment

A high-risk, high-reward global entry strategy where a firm commits capital to establish and own a foreign manufacturing division or subsidiary.

Dumping

The practice of selling merchandise in export markets at unfair prices that are lower than their actual value or production costs.

Ad Valorem Duty

A customs tax calculated and expressed as a specific percentage of the total monetary value of imported goods.

Specific Duty

A customs tax expressed as a specific amount of currency per unit of weight, volume, length, or other physical unit of measurement.