The case of Publix Greenwise vividly portrays that an alliance with New Balance will benefit the company and its consumers and will help to increase the number of customers and income. Publix Greenwise’s consumers are willing to discard products to satisfy psychological and sociological needs before the item has been totally consumed. Similar to Publix Greenwise’s consumers, new Balance consumers want items that are currently attractive but styled and designed to go out of fashion while the functional utility is still embodied in the product. American consumers are confronted with a taste dilemma. Both of these groups have a host of alternative methods for satisfying different tastes. They are faced continuously with the need to choose from among a wide variety of new products, services, books, movies, and television programs. Some alternatives meet the most discriminating standards; most do not.
The proposed strategy will help Publix Greenwise to increase its target market and attract new buyers. New Balance consumers seem to feel that there is a right and a wrong with regard to taste, and if they try hard enough, they can cultivate and achieve “the taste” (New Balance Home Page 2009). They are concerned about expressing their personalities through their taste but want to do so within the boundaries of good taste. Since the problem of comprehension of personality is difficult enough without trying to determine what good taste is, consumers often turn to taste experts such as decorators and architects for help. New Balance consumers are not merely blind conformists, followers, and emulators with homogenized tastes. Besides being willing to emulate, they are also anxious to differentiate. They are discriminating in the kinds and types of purchase they make. They tend to express themselves and to emphasize their own individuality (Publix Greenwise Home Page 2009). As disposable income increases and discretionary buying power is available to a broader consumer base, the opportunity for self-expression and individual differentiation will increase. This will be directly reflected in the design and manufacture of products. As income increases and leisure, mobility, and related cultural activities become even more important pursuits, differentiation through consumption will be even more associated with status (Drejer, 2002).
The sports footwear is popular among different types of customers so Publix Greenwise will be able to attract customers of different ages and social groups. Some warranted attacks have been made by critics on our mass homogenized culture and our marketing and manufacturing systems that focus on common consumer wants and needs. Yet it should be noted that our society has realized a high level of cultural, aesthetic, and materialistic attainment. Undoubtedly there are many aspects of our mass. In reality Publix Greenwise’s consumers are acquiring two new freedoms, discretionary time and discretionary mobility. Conspicuous leisure is accompanied by the use of time in the proper manner, and in good form related to gentility, breeding, and the cultivation of taste. Conspicuous consumption is an allied activity that implies consumption of the proper goods. Consumption is not a passive, costless, unenjoyable activity. Consumers do not receive their products and services passively or without considerable effort. They must make purchase decisions and expend energies, time, and money for both the purchase and use of products. Consumers would like to do so conveniently. Convenience, like leisure, is time-related, but as a marketing factor it involves more than time. Many types of convenience are built into products, including form, time, place, packaging, quantity, combination, automatic operations, selection, credit, and readiness. Other types of convenience involve access and use (Drejer, 2002; Publix Greenwise Home Page 2009).
Publix Greenwise’s consumers seek more than the lowest price in making a purchase or in using a product. Convenience is an essential ingredient of market acceptability. Consumers seek aggregate convenience — to minimize the total effort expended in purchasing and consumption. For Publix Greenwise, a dynamic, abundant economy with widespread discretionary purchasing power, leisure time, and private ownership of automobiles stimulates mobility — economic, social, occupational, and geographic. Two sets of forces are at work encouraging economic and social mobility. First, a steady upward flow of immigrants leaves the lower economic and social ranks empty. Second, upper opportunities exert a force to pull people up the ladders and are reinforced by immigration, which exerts a thrust to push them upward. It is only in a climate of abundance that both forces operate (Hollensen, 2007).
A company like Publix Greenwise should tke into account the fact that rapid economic advancement requires a high degree of mobility, for mobility renders the flexibility and human resources necessary for development. Mobility is a means of adjusting to change — change in opportunities, technology, production methods, relocation of facilities, and new market opportunities. The completely mobile person moves freely from community to community, from different economic positions, and from one social level to the next. The mobile individual is driven by the belief that he should never rest content in his existing station (Kotler and Armstrong 2005).
New Balance consumers are among the most mobile in the world. They are on the move as a result of job and living decisions. They seem to be willing to initiate and sustain the process of arriving in and departing from communities. They change homes and friends readily. Through the use of autos and trailers, they have fashioned a mobile lifestyle. They make their livelihoods in places distant from their home. They set out to achieve their own status instead of receiving family-endowed status. They are willing to select their own goals, and sacrifice and drive to achieve them. They accept the challenge of learning new ways, adopting new manners, becoming attractive to other individuals, and meeting the challenges of new living situations. The cycle of leaving the home to go to college, and then shifting from college to business surroundings and then from one corporate assignment to another, has an impact on the leadership of various cities; the way of life; the group arrangements and structures; and the lifestyles of the time. A significant proportion of Publix Greenwise’s consumers changes occupations, geographic sections, homes, jobs, social positions, income levels, and hence, their way of life yearly. Fashion is concerned with both novelty, its acceptance and satisfaction, and familiarity and its acceptance and rejection. Some new items become popular very quickly and are deemed fashionable. As an environmentally friendly corporation, New Balance will add new values to the Publix Greenwise brand. Fashions are important in those areas that are most visible, center on the ornamental, and are concerned with less basic areas of human activity. The fashion cycle, through which minority acceptance becomes majority acceptance, is related to adopter categories. Fashion leaders not only comprise the “jet setters” and upper classes, but also sometimes include fringe groups, Bohemians, and teenagers (Kotler and Armstrong 2005).
In sum, convenience and mobility are time-related. The new strategy will benefit both New Balance and Publix Greenwise. Convenience will be built into products and involves both access and use. It is an important aspect of shopping and a component of cost. New Balance and Publix Greenwise consumers are among the most geographically, socially, occupationally, and educationally mobile in the world.
References
Drejer, A. (2002). Strategic Management and Core Competencies: Theory and Application. Quorum Books.
Hollensen, S. (2007), Global Marketing: A Decision-Oriented Approach. Financial Times/ Prentice Hall; 4 edition.
Kotler, Ph., Armstrong, G. (2005). Principles of Marketing. Prentice Hall; 11th edition.
Publix Greenwise Home Page.