The external marketing environment (Socio-cultural) - By Mitchell Formica

Socio-cultural and the environment it encompasses involves a number of different factors such as the beliefs, customs, practices and behaviour within a population. We perceive forces in society and culture as influences on our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. For some people drinking beer is an activity that encourages good feelings and it is their belief that they it must be a part of their everyday life.

The link between the socio-cultural environment and the consumption of beer is a part of our every day’s lives. ‘The pub and bar have been geographically widespread social settings in many societies, symbolically as well as physically and socially central to popular culture, and yet in many ways they are unique leisure locations, warranting more attention than the sparse research to date’, (Northcote, J, 2011). Nowadays more and more places are accepting BYO beer and allowing consumers a wider range of beer products available for purchase. This change in society is due to a demand for the product, as more and more people are starting to drink socially the businesses that don’t cater for this are at a disadvantage and may even lose customers.

In today’s society there are many festivals and public activities like markets that involve beer in their social circle. It is becoming a part of our culture to incorporate whatever we are doing with alcohol. Opportunities such as these will envelope the beer products within our society as not a bad health risk but a more of a social pleasure that can be consumed without risk.

However in future there may be more opportunities for beer as technology changes and through automation and robotics we could see the beer industry redevelop itself in-terms of producing the overall product.

There have always been threats for the beer industry as they are seen as a bad health risk for consumers. Ad campaigns for beer have recently moved away from promoting their product with perfect videos of the beer just sitting there, to a different setting that involves younger diverse groups sipping away on a nice beach somewhere with the sunset in the background. This change is due to negative influences on beer and the ad campaigns are trying to move away from promoting the beer to instead promoting a place that you would rather be in with a beer.  

References

Northcote, J, 2011, ‘Young adults’ decision making surrounding heavy drinking: A multi-staged model of planned behaviour’, Vol.72 (12), pp.2020-2025.

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