David W. Pickton

What's swot in strategic analysis?

Environmental analysis is a critical part of the strategic management planning process. The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) framework is proposed by many as an analytical tool which should be used to categorize significant environmental factors both internal and external to the organization. SWOT analysis has been praised for its simplicity and practicality. As a framework it has been widely adopted but, generally, its use has been accepted uncritically. It is timely to reappraise its value as a strategic management tool. If used simplistically, the SWOT framework is a ‘naive’ tool which may lead to strategic errors. More detailed analysis using complementary frameworks can overcome SWOTs inherent shortfalls. SWOT should not be viewed as a static analytical tool with emphasis solely on its output. It should be used as a dynamic part of the management and business development process. Despite impressions often created by many authors on the subject who portray strategic planning as systematic, sequential and rational, the realities of planning reveal that strategy formulation is more likely to be somewhat more incremental, non-rational and irregular; more ‘organic’ than ‘mechanic’. Use of the SWOT framework tends to be most closely associated with the ‘mechanistic’ approach and suffers as a consequence of this association. SWOT analysis does not have to be mechanistic; adoption of the approach proposed here with emphasis on its process values as well as its output is strongly recommended.

Competitive intelligence in UK firms: a typology

There is a danger of allowing competitive analysis to receive less than adequate attention in the marketing‐planning process as it is subordinated to a customer‐driven focus. Clearly important though customers are, they should not dominate marketing strategy and planning to the exclusion of other influential groups, one of these being competitors. With this in mind, a pilot research project was undertaken to gain a better understanding of how UK companies conduct competitive intelligence. From this pilot, a tentative typology of companies was developed to reflect four attributes of competitive intelligence activity: attitude, gathering, use, and location. Further research was subsequently undertaken to corroborate the findings of the pilot study, test the appropriateness of the typology and further develop the classification definitions. The research has resulted in a typology that illustrates a continuum of behaviour on the four strands of investigation. From this, an understanding of CI best practice can be deduced.

Measuring integration: an assessment of the quality of integrated marketing communications

For many, the integration of marketing communications activities has taken centre stage in the discussions of factors affecting the advertising industry. It is argued here that the full extent of the integration process is neither fully articulated nor understood. This paper identifies and highlights a range of dimensions which need to be considered if the full benefits of integration are to be realised. Much of the debate about advertising effectiveness has centred on ‘output’ measures and advertisings weak or strong effects. This paper emphasises ‘process’ measures and presents two conceptual frameworks to better understand the marketing communications integration process. Using the frameworks of Dimensions of Integration and Continuum of Integration, a third framework, Quality of Integration Assessment Profile, is constructed and proposed.

Competitive Intelligence programmes for SMEs in France: evidence of changing attitudes

This paper reports on an empirical study of the French Chambers of Commerce and Industry Competitive Intelligence (CI) programmes. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the directors of 15 CI programmes from four regions of France. The research questions focused on definitional issues, CI programme content, Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) CI practices and innovative methods used to change attitudes towards CI. The interview transcriptions were sorted, analysed and classified in NVivo software. The findings show that tangible results have been achieved despite resistance from small businesses in regard to their Competitive Intelligence practices. The paper also identifies the public and private sector entities which were named as sources of advice for small businesses for their Competitive Intelligence needs. The SMEs were also classified by the application of a CI attitude typology. The insights elicited can help future initiatives by public/private partnerships in both CI programme design and implementation.

Account planning – from genesis to revelation

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of account planning by tracing its origins, development and role from its genesis to its current status. Account planning grew out of dissatisfaction with advertising agencies’ ability to meet the challenges they were facing in the early 1960s. It started out by combining elements of research and strategic planning to inform creative development and to provide the guidance and direction needed to use consumer insight to drive successful creative solutions. Since those early beginnings, a changing advertising environment has fuelled account planning’s exodus as it has been adopted internationally and by marketing communications fields that extend beyond advertising. While the paper brings us to the current day, account planning continues to evolve. It is expected that the trend of adoption by a range of marketing communications specialist agencies will persist but that a new account planning “revelation” will be in the form of independent strategy consultancies and increased client activities.

MNE executive insights into international advertising programme standardisation

The standardisation/adaptation debate in international advertising has been a key topic of discussion among practitioners and academics for over 40 years (Agarwal 1995). The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence executive decisions to standardise or adapt as determined by experienced international marketing executives working for large multinational enterprises (MNEs). The investigation initially provides a review of existing literature about the constructs under investigation and then, through in-depth qualitative interviews, it aims to develop an understanding of the factors executives consider important in the standardisation/adaptation decision in order to develop their international advertising strategies. This paper suggests that recognition of the impact of competition, culture, education, marketing institution and consumer related determinants have increased in importance over the years, affecting decisions of advertising theme, creative expression and media mix. Of these, advertising theme is the easiest and most appropriately standardised theme, whereas, creative expression and media mix are most susceptible to adaptation as per the requirement of the MNEs. The paper concludes by highlighting managerial and academic implications.

Left Brain Marketing Planning: a Forrester Research® viewpoint

Purpose – This viewpoint, based on research undertaken by Forrester Research, aims to assess the impact of technological change on consumer behaviour, especially media habits, and the implication this holds for marketing planners. Currently, it is believed that marketing planners are out of step with new customer behaviours growing out of the changing consumer technological environment. Left Brain Marketing Planning emphasises the need, opportunity and the means by which planners can adopt more analytical procedures to improve marketing planning by greater use of data‐driven approaches that permit the selection and allocation of marketing resources based on an holistic picture of customers across all points in the buying process.Design/methodology/approach – A two stage approach adopted by Forrester Research. First, a marketing allocation tool was devised using Forresters Consumer Technographics® data to understand how consumers interact with 13 media. These were used to index each medium against four ma...

Marketing intelligence and account planning: insights from the experts.

Account planning as a discipline has been somewhat obscured from academic view. In practice, it has played a significant role in the development of the marketing communications (especially, advertising) industry although it has been adopted in varying forms and with differing emphases. It has been misunderstood by many. This paper offers a summary of the insights gained from the papers contained in this special issue of Marketing Intelligence & Planning; papers that represent many years of experience in the field; papers that are a mix of academic and practitioner perspectives. Collectively, they describe this faintly mysterious discipline more completely than any other published source of which we know. What is clear from the papers is the absence of any agreed succinct description or definition of what account planning should be in the current and anticipated future marketing communications environment. This paper attempts to remedy this situation by proposing a definition of account planning derived from this collective work which others may wish to accept, develop, repudiate or (best of all) debate.

A systems-based media effectiveness framework for e-marketing communications

Computer-mediated communications have evolved to enable information interchange in highly active situations. This evolution has been reflected onto digital media towards human-based computer-mediated communication activities such as e-marketing (electronic marketing) communications. We will phrase media used in such active computer-mediated communication setups as “active media”. The term active media embraces interactive, coactive, and proactive digital media. This evolution also requires a major rethinking of how media are being consumed, and raise the need for reassessing the effectiveness of media.

Active Media: A framework for digital media effectiveness

This paper defines active media as a new paradigm that captures the richness of digital media in affecting every aspect of our lives. The term active media embraces interactive, coactive, and proactive digital media. Active media provide more dynamic and individualized experiences, and target recipients more accurately. Active media allow the integration of different human-centric systems into the era of system of systems. This new paradigm also overcomes the shortcomings of the existing paradigms for media consumption that still consider humans as information processors where media are considered as passive information objects processed by humans. However, media play more active roles in shaping our lives and in changing our behaviour and outlook, thus the process-oriented separation of passive objects and information processors is no longer valid when representing the interaction between media and humans. In this paper, e-marketing is used as an example of the application of active media. E-marketing environments are evolving into becoming more active and this could have a significant impact on the success of products and services. Applying the proposed framework on e-marketing communications will overcome the limitations of existing assessing methodologies by introducing a far wider and richer set of measures to describe, assess, and enhance the effectiveness of active media. The paper introduces an effectiveness framework based on a set of deliberate media effectiveness measures, and gives a sound rationale for choosing these measures. The introduced framework will help in accurately understanding, assessing, and enhancing the impact of active media on human-centred activities.