ABSTRACT
Forces in the macro-environment affect marketing more indirectly by helping or hindering things such as the effect of advertising, the disposable income of customers, the opportunities for new products, etc. The company has much less influence over the macro-environment, determined much more by the state of the general economy, social forces, technological advances, government policies, etc.
A better way of viewing the marketing environment would be more appropriate, however, if it turned the ‘onion’ inside out, putting consumers at the centre and competing companies at the periphery. One criticism of the conventional view depicted in Figure 3 is that it is too ‘marketer-centric’, not customer-centric. The depiction of the marketing environment should be centred on the consumer, not the seller, according to the traditional marketing concept (see Marketing values). In Figure 4, therefore, the firm’s environment shows the consumer at the centre, with sellers fighting for their trade from the outside, and also competing for distribution channels to customers, for retail space, advertising placements, etc.
