UNIT 1

MARKETING

Discussion

How can you explain the meaning of the word marketing? What skills are of the most use for specialist in marketing?

TEXT 1

Philosophy of market. Defining marketing.

Vocabulary

Managerial - управленческий to assess - оценивать promotional activities - действия по продвижению товара price discounting - ценовые скидки placement - размещение couponing - использование купонов enhancement - увеличение, улучшение survey data - данные осмотра, оценки

audits - проверки advent - появление coincidence - совпадение sophisticated - изощренный prevalent - преобладающий, превалирующий competitors - конкуренты extent - зд. масштаб доля рынка

A prominent economist Philip Kotler defines marketing as «a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others. Marketing research is used to assess the market's response to the firm's marketing inputs which include promotional activities such as price discounting, placement of in-store displays, multimedia advertising, and couponing; expanding distribution; and product development and enhancement. The goal of marketing research is to assist the firm in determining the most effective, i.e. most profitable, mix of marketing inputs given knowledge of the marketplace.

As a formal scientific discipline marketing research began in the early twentieth century with most analyses being based on survey data. In the 1930s, the A. C. Nielsen Company began collecting in-store data using manual audits. Today, with the advent of scanning technology, the amount of timely data available from stores and household panels has grown exponentially. Coincident with this data explosion, the data delivery systems and the techniques used to analyze the data have become increasingly sophisticated. Marketing research is an integral part of organizations in both the consumer durable and nondurable goods sectors, and in recent years the use of marketing principles has become increasing prevalent among nonprofit and government sectors.

Marketing research is interdisciplinary requiring the knowledge of economists, operations researchers, psychologists, and statisticians. For the economist, the economic theory of consumer behavior and the theory of the firm provide basic building blocks. Marketing research can be viewed as an operational or tactical activity and as a strategic activity. Although both activities require knowledge of the workings of the marketplace at both the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels, tactical -analyses focus on monitoring a product's performance and testing the effectiveness of marketing programs relative to competitors. Strategic research involves selecting and optimizing marketing opportunities.

In order to understand the marketplace, the researcher must define the market in terms of both the geographic unit and the product class and collect data. Data on consumer purchases permit an analyst to determine what was sold and how particular brands performed relative to each other. In addition to sales and price information, causal data assist the analyst in understanding the reason that sales took place. Examples of causal data are newspaper advertising, which indicates the extent of retailer advertising support, display activity, and coupon ads. Another important source of information for understanding the source of sales is television advertising. Measuring the effects of television advertising is relatively difficult owing to the dynamic effects such advertising has on consumer behavior, however.

Text exercises

1. True or false?

A. Marketing as a formal scientific discipline has its roots in Greece and Rome.

B. Philip Kotler, a prominent economist, defined marketing research as «a social and managerial process.

C. Marketing research began in the early twentieth century.

D. Marketing research requires the knowledge of economists, operation researchers, psychologists and statisticians.

E. The research must understand the location and product class of a certain market in order to understand it.

2. Give definitions in English to the following points:

a) marketing b) promotional activities c) couponing d) tactical activity

e) strategic activity f) statistical models g) business economist h) macroeconomic environment

3. Find equivalents in Russian for:

a) managerial process b) promotional c) activities d) placement of in-store displays

e) multimedia advertising f) durable and nondurable goods sectors g) product class

GRAMMAR

Past simple vs. Present Perfect

Study the example:

I knew Julie for ten years (but then she moved away and we lost touch).

I've known Julie for ten years (and I still know her).

Present Perfect describes unfinished actions that started in the past and continue to the present while Past Simple means finished actions. Let’s compare the rest cases of Present Perfect and Past Simple using:

Present Perfect	Past Simple
A finished action in someone's life (when the person is still alive: life experience): My brother has been to Mexico three times.	A finished action in someone's life (when the person is dead): My great-grandmother went to Mexico three times.
A finished action with a result in the present: I've lost my keys! (The result is that I can't get into my house now).	A finished action with no result in the present: I lost my keys yesterday. It was terrible! (Now there is no result. I got new keys yesterday).
With an unfinished time word (this week, this month, today): I've seen John this week.	With a finished time word (last week, last month, yesterday): I saw John last week.

Note: time expressions such as “this morning/week/month” and “today” can be used with either past simple or present perfect verbs. If the speaker thinks of e.g. this morning as a past, completed time period, then we use the past simple; if we think of “this morning” as a time period which includes the present moment, then we use the present perfect. Let’s compare:

I didn’t shave this morning (the morning is over for me).

I haven’t shaved this morning (it’s still the morning and I might shave later).

Since/for: in a sentence with a time clause we generally prefer a past simple verb in the time clause and a present perfect verb in the main clause:

I've liked chocolate main clause

since I was a child. time clause

In news reports you will often read or hear recent events introduced with the present perfect, and then the past simple or other past tenses are used to give details: An American woman has become the first person to make 2 million contributions to Wikipedia. Esther Miller began editing the site eight years ago.

The present perfect is usually used after the patterns “It/this/that is/will be the first time…”, but after “It/this/that was the first time…” we use past perfect.

Grammar exercises