Using scenarios to improve marketing

Abstract

Purpose

The paper explains how scenarios can be used to create alternative models of markets in way that is useful to marketing managers and the product development team.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper outlines the how‐to process for developing and using marketing scenarios.

Findings

The paper finds that marketing scenarios can help leaders improve their understanding of future customer behavior; be used with focus groups to test reactions to different products in varying future contexts; be translated into physical environments that help focus groups to “live” in the future; be useful in developing brand strategy and in testing the sustainability of brands; uncover a wider range of choices than those perceived by competitors, facilitating customer preference and longer‐term relationships and explore uncertainty and can help to anticipate new value propositions.

Practical implications

One of the benefits of shorter‐term scenarios is that rather than pointing marketers towards a range of alternative possible industry futures, they are more likely to steer them towards a range of developing market opportunities. Several of the scenarios are likely to play out at the same time in different parts of the market. This means they can help marketers to identify both the sectors where their offering can be competitive and the sectors where it will flounder.

Originality/value

The paper presents several advantages of using marketing analysis tools to analyze a number of potential futures: for example, to gain a perspective beyond the current ones (timeframe, markets, organizational); and also to provide a framework for a discussion of priorities and assumptions that have all ready been made in the organization's “official future.”

Citation

Curry, A., Ringland, G. and Young, L. (2006), "Using scenarios to improve marketing", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 34 No. 6, pp. 30-37. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570610711251