Skip to main content
LibApps staff login

MKT 303: Honors Marketing Theory & Practice

Demographic

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).   

Best Sources (US Government, free on Web)

Best Sources (Databases)

  •  Population and household information arranged by customers or users of the type of product or service

Economic

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 consumer loans, but also have a significant impact on the availability 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:

    * BEST SOURCES:
          o Economic Indicators   
                  Census Economic Indicators
          o PollingReport.com -- Economic Outlook and page 2        
             

When considering economics, think about your product and its "essentialness". Land line telephones were once essential as were radios and broadcast TV antenna. Would your product survive the next economic downturn? How well did your product do in the last downturn? Is your product counter cyclic -- does well in downturns (the vices do)?

Natural

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 database ABI/INFORM.

   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.
     * BEST SOURCES: (live links to these at bottom of this box)

  • Biological Science Collection
  • Compendex 
  • ​Environment Complete 

   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.

                           

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 at the corporate level.
    * BEST SOURCES:

  • Annual Report of your company
  • Sustainability pages on the company web site (if any)
  • 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 various news sources, especially ABI/Inform
  • Social Responsibility, Ecology, and Sustainability

   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. To get background infomation:
          * BEST SOURCES:
                o How products are made : an illustrated guide to product manufacturing Online 
                o Pesticide manufacturing and toxic materials control encyclopedia (TP 248 .P47 S52 1980 HDC)

Links to library databases listed above in this box:

Technological

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 ABI/Inform.

  1. 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. To get background information:

    * BEST SOURCES:

  2. 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.
  3. 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 availability of products and substitutes.

Political/Legal

This section is researched by looking at the state and federal agencies the govern that industry. There usually is more than one agency that monitors your industry. Which agencies are needed depends on the product. You will have clues to what you need by the information on the company's web page under the "About Us" or the "Investor Relations" web pages. Don't forget that your company may not have lawsuits, but your competitor might. These often have industry impact.  Product recalls are always part of this section.  Political and legal issues can arise for the component parts of your product or for any part of the company. Any product made from crude oil (fabrics, food additives, emulsifiers, many plastics) automatically has political issues. Check the Social Responsibility, Ecology and Sustainability LibGuide for any of those issues that could have impact here.

* BEST SOURCES

  1. USA.gov  (gateway to federal agencies and information)
  2. For pending or new laws and legislation on the Federal level:
    • ProQuest Congressional (see link below)
      Do NOT read the hearings. The summary provided in the index is sufficient for this project.
    • PAIS International (see link below)
  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:
    • Stateline.org: Your Source for State News (Pew Center on the State)
    • Nexis Uni (see link below)  has state and local information, but it is hidden under the ADVANCED search -- Legal
      • For state level information -- Use the ADVANCED search -- LEGAL -- Administrative Codes and Regulations.  Search by keyword. Be sure to specify your state or states.
      • For local (city or county) ordinances -- Use the ADVANCED search -- LEGAL -- Statutes and Legislation -- USA -- US Municipal Codes. Search by keyword. Be sure to specify your state or states and the cities or towns.
  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.  Check your company's name, any brand names, and the industry. (both broad and narrow, for example, the industries for Anheuser-Busch InBev's Budweiser industries are beverages, alcohol, malt beverages, and beer).

    * BEST SOURCES:

    • Visit the databases listed in the Recommended Databases box on the MKT 302 Home page. 

Social/Cultural

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 them the current public attitude towards their company or product unless there has been a recent negative incident: oil spills (Exxon), blackouts (electrical utilities), financial problems (Apple), 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.

* BEST SOURCES:

Don't forget that a general search with your broad industry plus the phrase "consumer trends" can get you articles about the general situation:

           (footwear or shoes) AND "consumer trends"

           (footwear or shoes) AND trends

           "fashion trends"

Links to library databases listed above: