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Profiles the changing face of the UK automobile market 1978‐80. Examines the changing fortunes of the four major British producers – BL, Ford, Vauxhall and Talbot – in the light of political and economic factors and the emergence of increased competition from imports. Outlines methods used by Western Europeans and the Japanese to establish themselves in the UK market and subsequently increase their share of the market. Highlights the weaknesses of UK manufacturers – the limited size of UK plants, a tendency for model overlap and industrial relations problems. Explores the nature of competition in the UK market and the effectiveness of advertising. Concludes that UK manufacturers need to launch products perceived as modern, value for money and reliable if they are to combat the ever‐increasing threat from foreign competitors.

The fundamental political and economic reforms taking place in Eastern and Central Europe pose some difficult questions for the future of the agri‐food industries in Hungary and Bulgaria. A major sector facing the problems of transition to a market economy is wine, traditionally an important source of export earnings. The loss of the volume markets in the former COMECON countries has forced the wine sectors to look to West European markets and the UK in particular, where wine consumption is rising. Hungary is currently a minor source of wine in the UK and has a generally poor reputation in servicing the requirements of the market. Bulgaria now accounts for over 3 per cent of the UK′s total wine imports and is perceived widely to be an example of highly successful marketing. This is due largely to tight control over export activities by a former state‐controlled export body. Since the fall of Communism, this control has been weakened as individual wineries export on their own account – undermining the consistency of marketing effort. Overall both Hungary and Bulgaria have the potential to meet the wine import requirements of the UK wine buyers, although both have to overcome common and divergent problems of transition and are developing from different historical bases.

Wine is important to the Portuguese economy, and the United Kingdom is one of Portugal's oldest and most important wine markets. Yet the Portuguese are rapidly losing their share of the UK market, and have already been overtaken by Australia, Bulgaria, South Africa, the USA and Hungary. This paper reports a study of the Portuguese wine industry in the context of the UK market using Porter's structural analysis model as the analytical framework. Data were collected via depth interview with executives closely involved in the wine trade, in Portugal and the UK. It was found that Portugal's traditional source of competitive advantage, low costs as a consequence of low wages, has been eroded. The absence of any other cost advantage, low investment in products and markets and a lack of scale economies are exacerbated by production‐led convictions that Portuguese wine is best — it is just that the customers do not appreciate it. Meanwhile the customers perceive a lack of reliability in quality, lack of the ability to consistently deliver the required quantity and fluctuating prices. Portugal needs a consistent strategy for sustainable competitive advantage; some alternative strategies are discussed.

In this section we look at banking in the single market, new directions in financial services marketing, the validity of the 4Ps for services marketing, measuring the marketing culture of a service firm, the erosion of bank margins, Citibank's global consumer banking network, and the pricing of services.

Boxing Not so Clever In this first issue of what will be a regular review of the world's marketing literature, it is a challenge to an editor to extricate a theme from such an abundance of riches.

The study functions as marketing intelligence inputs for the UK Government, the British Council as well as academic marketing planners for constructing their marketing opportunities‐threats audits, it investigates international students’ perception about the UK education and it researches UK performance in the world markets for international education. UK education has been known to be the best in the world. For many years, the UK universities have enjoyed a high reputation and have benefited in accelerating its market penetration worldwide. Unfortunately, this superiority has begun to decline. Other countries are strongly emerging with their quality education. The study shows that UK competitors achieved a remarkable growth of their international students’ enrolment while the UK achieves only a marginal growth with declining market penetration abroad. The findings confirmed the central importance of pricing, product and promotional variables in designing and marketing UK education abroad.

The Great Benchmarking Scam? Time was, in management circles, that the term “benchmarking” would induce none‐too‐disguised yawns in recognition of it “being something to do with computers or job evaluation”. Not today; those yawns have been replaced with the excited management‐blabber of a new fad. You can benchmark anything these days; I encountered recently a guide to benchmarking employee attitudes.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning is split into nine sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Customer Service; Sales Management; Promotion; Marketing Research/Customer Behaviour; Product Management; Logistics and Distribution; Sundry.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning is split into nine sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Customer Service; Sales Management; Promotion; Marketing Research/Customer Behaviour; Product Management; Logistics and Distribution; Sundry.

MCB is not a company to rest on its laurels. In the vernacular of modern‐day management literature, the company can rightly claim to be a learning organization; one that seeks to regenerate and develop itself in accordance with current trends, most notably those in customer and market requirements.