Marketing mix- Physical environment PDF

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Marketing mix-Physical environment- Core theory ...

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My Marketing Experience - Theory

Q8 Physical environment The physical environment is where a service encounter takes place and where services are delivered. The setting is sometimes referred to as the servicescape. From a marketing perspective, the physical environment gives customers an indication of the kind of service they might expect to receive and the type and quality of products available, aligned to target market expectations. Physical evidence is included in this area and is anything tangible that the consumer receives as part of the service encounter, e.g. carrier bags and tickets. In a restaurant, hotel or spa, the décor, furnishings and building all give a potential customer clues about the quality of the service encounter they are about to receive. Ultimately, the ambience of a location can have a significant influence on the customer’s perception of the service quality. Accor, the world’s leading hotel operator, offers more than 15 different hotel formats to provide ‘a comprehensive range of options across the luxury to the economy spectrum’1. The group’s hotel brands are distinctly different in appearance – for example, Sofitel is an upscale, luxury hotel chain, designed to create a feeling of French class and style; Novotel is a mid-range hotel, catering for families; and Ibis is a budget chain, which aims to provide its guests with a ‘happy sleep’.2 The layout and physical organisation of a service business can also affect overall perceptions of the service experience. This element of the service mix can be very tangible and help to reassure and affirm customers’ quality expectations. The physicality of a location provides many clues for a potential customer, e.g. from the cleanliness of the toilets and the tidiness of the facility to the style of the décor. For a hotel, restaurant, beauty salon and spa, aspects of physical evidence might include the following:      

parking areas the entrance/reception to the business the building, its facilities and rooms where the service encounter takes place the list of offerings and the menu the areas in which specific services are delivered the look and design of the company website.

My Marketing Experience - Theory

For a retailer, the physical evidence aspects are very important. For example, when Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, opened her first shop in Brighton in 1976, she painted the store green and sprinkled fragrances on the pavement outside to attract customer attention and draw people into the store. What Anita was doing was creating an atmosphere that could position the store in consumers’ minds. According to research, retailers regularly use atmospheric scent, e.g. coffee shops, bakeries, fragrance stores, and music to encourage greater product engagement, to improve perceptions of the store’s image and to increase the time a customer spends in a particular store.3 The important message for market managers is that if they are able to enhance the physical environment through use of the five senses, customers will possibly behave in a more favourable way towards the brand and smells, sounds and design can all be used to positively enhance the experience and give target customers further assurances that they are making the right purchase decisions.

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Accor (2013) ‘Accor’s strategic vision’, www.accor.com/en/group/accors-strategicvision.html (accessed 14 October 2013). 2 Accor, Ibid. 3 Vaccaro, V., Yucetepe, V., Torres-Baumgarten, G. and Myung-Soo Lee, A. (2009) ‘The Impact of Atmospheric Scent and Music-Retail Consistency on Consumers in a Retail or Service Environment’, Journal of International Business and Economics, 9 (4), 185–196....