Response to Katie Longchamp

For the Ford F-150, like Katie said, it had many different competitors in the market place, a few more examples include the following:

-Brand Competitor: Dodge Ram

-Product Competitor: Toyota 

-Generic Competitor: A smart car

-Total Budget Competitor: A used truck

Every product had a range of competitors like the Ford F-150 does, another example that has various competitors would be Maxwell coffee:

-Brand Competitor: Folgers coffee

-Product Competitor: Lipton Tea 

-Generic Competitor: Lemonade

-Total Budget Competitor: Cheapest drink

When it comes to global competition, I feel as though every product is affected in some way, shape, or form. However, some products are more impacted than others. For instance a product that is provided from a different countries resources may be impacted more, such as the price of oil varying. On the other hand, soda companies that are based in the United States might not be affected as much. Though, when it comes to stocks that are impacted world wide, everything will be effected.

Target Market

In chapter four, the beginning of the reading begins by discussing the importance of a target market when selling a product or service. The books goes on to describe a target market as 'a group of people or organizations for which an organization designs, implements, and maintains a marketing mix intended to meet the need of that group, resulting in mutually satisfying exchanges' (pg. 45).

Therefore it would seem as though every single product or service is said to have a specific group of people, the target market, in which they are aiming to sell towards.

What I am wondering though is that it would seem as not all products or services have just one target market, some may have many. Therefore if a company need to target more than one market, it is in turn going to have more advertisements, as well as a much more divisive selling view.

Some companies on the other hand have only one identified target market to focus their product or services towards, however some companies try to expand their markets in hope of reaching new customers and overall expanding their product or services outputs as well. However this does not always seem like it would be the best decision for all customers to make.

If there is one target market then it will be easier for a company to focus it's efforts in one direction, on the other hand, if a company has multiple markets then it has a higher chance of reaching a larger audience.

Do you think it is more beneficial for a company to have only one specific target market, or rather have a range of different target markets?