Macromarketing

Macromarketing is an area of economic study and practice that deals with marketing on a very large scale. Macromarketers are concerned with the economic activities of entire societies or countries, or sometimes even the whole world. These experts may conduct scientific tests or analyze public wants and social trends to create the most effective large-scale advertising campaigns. They must also consider factors such as the products being offered, the price to consumers, the place of the marketing, and the overall nature of the promotion. The opposite of macromarketing is micromarketing, which approaches marketing campaigns on a smaller and more focused scale.

Background

Economies have existed for thousands of years, dating back to ancient times when people bartered for goods and services. Over time, economies have become enormously powerful and influential forces, leading to the eventual academic study of economics. In its most basic sense, economics is the study of how people earn, save, and use money.

In modern times, one of the biggest and most influential areas of economics is marketing. Marketing refers to the activity and process of building links and spreading information between industries and their potential consumers. Marketers create, distribute, and interpret this information to help stimulate consumers to patronize certain businesses and purchase goods and services. These consumers may include individual customers, business partners, and entire societies.

Modern marketing began around the time of the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when goods became more abundant. The increased availability of goods and services meant that consumers had more options, and businesses had to compete for consumer interest. Businesses that failed to win over consumers fell behind financially and many were ultimately trampled by stronger businesses.

Competition between companies became intense in the twentieth century, a time when business leaders increasingly turned toward marketing to gain the attention of potential buyers. Marketing subsequently became its own large industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people in various capacities. Marketers embraced changes in science, such as new technologies and forms of media by which they could spread information to consumers. Collectively, marketers became one of the most influential public voices of the modern era.

In turn, the science of marketing became an area of considerable study and innovation around the world. Marketing experts diversified the practice into many fields and across many platforms. Some types of marketing that rose to prominence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries include influencer, social media, guerilla, relationship, viral, pay-per-click marketing, search engine marketing, and green marketing. These many varieties of marketing may be viewed from two major perspectives: macromarketing and micromarketing.

Overview

Macromarketing is a field that explores marketing from its broadest perspectives. This field views how marketing plans, techniques, and goals affect societies, countries, or the world. Although many economic theorists throughout history have considered large-scale marketing concepts, macromarketing as a distinct field only developed in the late twentieth century. The term itself likely originated in the 1962 book The Development of Marketing Thought, written by Robert Bartels. This book was notable for its speculations into then-future trends in marketing, including the macromarketing perspective.

In general, proponents of macromarketing attempt to study and improve marketing techniques using sociological observations and theories. Macromarketing experts might analyze the ways in which societies change through time, develop in their needs and wants, and learn about new concepts and technologies. In many cases, macromarketing seeks to promote ideas about the public good, both for the benefit of society and the industries being represented by the marketing.

Macromarketers base much of their study on four aspects of economic activity that lead to public demand for various goods and services. These aspects, often termed the “four Ps,” are product, price, place, and promotion. The product is the good or service being marketed, the price refers to the cost to the consumer, the place is the location in which the product is marketed or sold, and the promotion refers to the marketing campaign itself. This four-fold approach is not exclusive to macromarketers; rather, it has been a staple of marketing in general since the 1950s. Other important factors of analysis include the people and process involved in the marketing, and existing evidence of consumer interest and sentiment. Demographics, political factors, and technological changes are also important points of a macromarketing study.

Macromarketers may explore the values of a particular society to find marketing techniques that will most appeal to the public at a given time. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, many macromarketing-minded experts developed advertising that appealed to consumers’ desire to protect their health or to adapt more easily to social-distancing requirements. Around the same time, social unrest in the United States inspired many macromarketers to associate their brands with various reform-minded figures, concepts, and organizations.

Assessing the feelings and desires of a society is a complicated task. Macromarketers often use special scientific techniques to find the information they need to design their campaigns. One of these techniques is known as A/B testing, or the A-B split. In this form of test, macromarketers create two versions of campaign media, and then present them to groups of test subjects. In many cases, these campaigns may have only a slight variation, but one which may have a measurable effect on the campaign’s effectiveness. The macromarketers then question the test audiences on their reactions to the media, and use this feedback to make the most effective campaigns.

The opposite of macromarketing is micromarketing, which takes a much smaller and more focused perspective on a marketing campaign or question. Whereas macromarketers study entire societies, micromarketers may consider the interests or behaviors of much smaller groups, such as people in a single neighborhood or people who share some personal characteristics. Micromarketers may deal with more specialized goods or services, and spend more time customizing their campaigns to appeal to specific groups of customers.

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