Chapter ||

Review of Related Literature

A marketing strategy is a process or model to allow a company or organization to focus limited
resources on the best opportunities to increase sales and thereby achieve a sustainable competitive
advantage.

Foreign Literature
Drucker 1973 Strategic marketing as seen as a process consisting of: analyzing environmental, market
competitive and business factors affecting the corporation and its business units, identifying market
opportunities and threats and forecasting future trends in business areas of interest for the enterprise ,
and participating in setting objectives and formulating corporate and business unit strategies. Selecting
market target strategies for the product-markets in each business unit, establishing marketing objectives
as well as developing , implementing and managing the marketing program positioning strategies in
order to meet market target needs. Hart &Stapleton 1977 " a statement in very general terms of how
the marketing objective is to be achieved, e.g. acquiring a competitive company, by price reductions, by
product improvement, or by intensive advertising.The strategy becomes the basis of the marketing
plan" Lambin 1977 The role of strategic marketing is to lead the firm towards attractive economic
opportunities, that is, opportunities that are adapted to its resources and know-how and offer a
potential for growth and profitability. Baker 1984 the establishment of the goal or purpose of a
strategic business unit and the means by which it is to be achieved trough management of the
marketing function" Cravens 1986 understanding the strategic situation confronting an organization is
an essential starting point in developing a marketing strategy

Local Literature
Marketing is a customer focus that permeates organizational functions and processes and is geared
towards making promises through value propositions, enabling the fulfil-ment of expectations created
by such promises and fulfilling such expectations through support to customers value-generating
processes, thereby supporting value creation in the firms as well as its customers and other
stakeholders processes.(Christian Grnroos, 2006) Marketing permeates the entire organization,
plans and executes the sale all the way from inception of product idea through development and
distribution to the customer purchase. Marketing begins and ends with the consumer.(Robert J. Keith,
1960) "the business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customers point of
view."(Peter Drucker). (Ambler 2004), A competence, a mindset and a resource which has potential of
creating competitive advantage
Theoretical framework
This chapter is devoted to the theoretical foundation of strategy and the role of Marketing Strategy.
It assumes that the reader has some knowledge on the basic marketing concepts; therefore the
explanations are brief and concrete.
The theoretical framework for this thesis is divided into three sections, which will now be commented
on in chronological order.
Firstly, marketing strategy theory is described with emphasis on subjects relevant for the research
question. In the beginning of this section marketings background, namely environmental management,
is described briefly to explain where the idea of marketing strategy came from. The next part deals with
the question of why marketing strategy is a subject in contemporary society. To describe this, strategy
theory, explained by Peattie (1995), Fuller (1999) and Ottman (1998), is used. These three marketing
strategy theorists are also the main sources for theoretical information throughout this thesis,
supplemented by Ranchhod and Gurau (2007), as well as Elkington and Hailes (1989). I am not to say
that other authors of marketing strategy theory are of lesser academic value in connection with writing
this thesis, but the ones chosen are the most relevant authors available through Danish libraries. The
next part under marketing deals with defining marketing and corporate social responsibility. The reason
why this is described is that marketing strategy is a part of corporate social responsibility, with focus on
the environmental responsibility, and therefore complements the background for marketing while it
also gives further explanation to why corporations have a responsibility towards the environment. After
having established the background of marketing and why marketing is a subject in contemporary
society, the next part defines what marketing is. After this is established marketing strategies are
described with emphasis on subjects relevant for this thesis. This part also includes a comparison of
marketing strategies in connection with British Airways initiative of carbon offsetting. The last part
under marketing strategy deals with implications for organisations. This part is included to give a better
picture of why marketing is important for corporations, with focus on negative as well as positive
elements.

Secondly, the theoretical framework deals with consumerism theory. The reason for dividing green
marketing theory and consumerism theory is purely to give a better overview of the theoretical
framework, as these two subjects are strongly related. The first part of consumerism section deals with
consumer behaviour research. The reason for including this part is to give an explanation of which
consumer behaviour research approaches that will be use in this thesis. The next part concerns green
consumer theory. In this part it soon becomes clear that it is difficult to define who consumers are, as
the degree of environmental concern varies a great deal among consumers, but this section does give a
usable overview of attempts to define consumers. Because it is difficult to define consumers, the next
part of consumerism theory deals with the buying process, as this thesis argues that the buying process
is the most clear way of identifying green consumer behaviour.

The third and last section under the theoretical framework regards the theory of global warming and the
impacts of climate change. I felt it was necessary to include this section to clarify what the exact scope
of environmental issues affecting British Airways include.
After having explained the relevant theory for this thesis, it is now time to take a closer look at the
background information needed to draw a conclusion to this thesis.
Conceptual Framework
Abstract
Marketing Strategy is becoming a key strategy for organisations to develop and maintain strong
customer relationships. This method targets specific customers with personalized advertising and
promotional campaigns in order to help organisations increase campaign responses and to get a higher
return on their investments. There are, however, many issues related to marketing, ranging from the
highly technical to the more organisational and managerial aspects. This research focuses on the
organisational and managerial issues of the marketing process and investigates the stages, activities and
technologies required to effectively execute marketing. The marketing process integrates a complex
collection of marketing concepts and business analytics principles, which form an entirely self-
contained choice for organisations. This makes direct marketing a significantly difficult process to
perform. As a result, many scholars have attempted to tackle the complexity of executing the
Marketing strategy process. However, most of their research efforts did not consider an integrated
information system platform capable of effectively supporting the marketing strategy process.
References:
http://members.optushome.com.au/raymondyu/pub/thesis/ch3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
Giancarlo Pallavicini, "Banca e ricerche di mercato", into "L'Economia", Libera Universit di Studi Sociali,
Roma, December 1959
Jump up ^ Kotler, Philip; Kevin Lane Keller (2009). "1". A Framework for Marketing Management (4th
ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-602660-5.
Strategic Marketing by David W. Cravens and Nigel F. Piercy
Jump up ^ "Marketing Management: Strategies and Programs", Guiltinan et al., McGraw Hill/Irwin, 1996



Methodology
Regardless of its industry, size or other variables, firms marketing strategy needs to be aligned with the
overall corporate strategy in order for the firm to be able to grow in long-term perspective. To put it
simply, rather than being independent of corporate strategy, strategic marketing needs to be able to
contribute to the achievement of strategic objective an en efficient manner.

It has been stated that because the link between marketing strategy and shareholder value has not
been made, boards have tended to look at two other more transparent strategies. One has been cost
reduction sometimes disguised by more appealing names such as reengineering, downsizing or right
sizing. The other common remedy has been acquisition (Doyle, 2008, p.19).
Subjects
This section should identify the process for selection, recruitment, and delineation of the subject pool
used for your study. The subject pool should be reflective of the population selected for the study.
Instrumentation
The instrumentation section should identify the tool(s) used for collection of data. How the instrument
was acquired or created as well as reliability and validity of the instrument should be presented in this
section.
Procedures
All aspects pertaining to the entire process conducted should be described. Careful consideration should
be paid to approval of methods and treatment of human or animal subjects. All treatments should be
carefully described as well as notification of risks for participation.
Statistical Analysis
Provide a clear description of the statistical process used for analysis of data. The type of statistical tests
should be reflective of the research hypothesis or question(s).