In terms of geomarketing considered as a set of techniques to map many social phenomena, as we will see, we could also go back in time and recall the role of the Belgian Gérard de Kreme, known as Gérardus Mercator, who invented mapping in the 16th Century (Horst 2011). In the 18th Century, the first map of the Kingdom of France was drawn by the Cassini family and this work, based on geodesic triangulation, lasted more than 60 years. Today, we still consult Cassini’s map for historical works. And, older readers will surely remember the geography courses and maps of Vidal de la Blache (often called Vidal-Lablache).
But while geomarketing is a set of mapping techniques, spatial marketing is above all a much broader field, not only in methodological terms, but also and above all in conceptual and theoretical terms, which should enable private or public organizations to define more precise and appropriate strategies: space is not only geographical, it is also economic, cultural and institutional if we break down the notion of distance according to the Uppsala model (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul 1975).
This is why this book talks about spatial marketing, because mapping, which is important and central to the notion of geomarketing, is not the only technique that makes it possible to control space in marketing decisions. Spatial marketing therefore concerns all of the following:
– location issues, including- points of sale for retailers;- private institutions (factories, head offices, warehouses, etc.) or public institutions (town halls, administrations, departmental or regional buildings);
– localized marketing, including- at the local level, micromarketing – marketing applied locally to individuals whose characteristics related to their location are known;- at the international level, macromarketing – marketing applied at the level of a country taking into account the specificities of its population compared to others;– geographic information systems applied to marketing;– mobile marketing based largely on issues of dynamic customer location-based marketing (Palos-Sanchez et al. 2018).
Developing spatial marketing requires a clear understanding of two closely related phenomena referred to as location and localization. This book will deal with aspects related to both location and localization and therefore knowledge specific to management sciences, both those related to the geography of territories and those related to intercultural aspects. Social considerations will not be forgotten insofar as space and especially the ability to travel and move around it can be a source of inequality that has serious economic and social consequences (Fourquet 2019). Spatial mobility and the ability to change residence are one of the causes of unemployment.
Most individuals are able to acquire knowledge of space, including locations, distances and directions: we speak of “spatial intelligence” and even “brain GPS” (OʼKeefe et al. 1998) and “cells that constitute a geoposition system in the brain”, a kind of internal GPS. An article in the CNRS journal explains how this brain GPS works (Belaud 2019). This discovery answers the following questions:
How do we know where we are? How do we find our way from one place to another? And how do we store this information in such a way that we can immediately find the path the next time we take the same route?
There has even been an attempt to model this acquisition process without any real success (Montello 1998). These digital geographic tools and especially GPS can cause some people to lose all or part of their ability to explore new environments, and added to the development of artificial intelligence, may lead them to sink into the “planet of the apes syndrome” (Picq 2019).
Moreover, it is difficult today to separate a firm’s functions (namely marketing, information systems and human resources management, logistics, strategy, but also the underlying organizational forms) at local, regional, national and international levels. This is why many of the reflections in this book will focus on aspects other than marketing in the strict sense.
The communications revolution may have led us to believe that distance was “dead” (Cairncross 1997). This is not the case and it is time to rediscover space (Barnes et al. 2018). Digital mobility tools, smartphones and tablets are largely based on geolocation systems. Not taking geographical space into account in its decision-making processes could in the long-term lead to the company that refuses to comply with it becoming “obsolete”. It is true that in all markets, there are small firms that survive very well without using “new” technologies at all. But they often work in niches that are inaccessible to larger organizations. The latter explore the possibilities of Big Data in particular by relying on geolocated data, as about 80% of the data relevant to business is linked, in one way or another, to spatial considerations. These firms are developing data mining methodologies to improve their decision-making processes related to customer relationship management (CRM), hence the need to link marketing and information systems management (Goes 2014). In addition, space continues to play an essential role in the location of points of sale. Recent decisions by retail groups to close outlets are a telling example of this, if not perfect (see Chapter 4). We must be aware that today’s location strategies concern at least as much the opening of contact points as closures, in other words, network restructuring.
Finally, while this book aims to disseminate theories, concepts and methods, not to mention applications, it is also a call for more research focused on spatial marketing. Decision makers need a theoretical basis to interpret mapping results, better understand the consequences of introducing space into their decision-making process and once again develop finer strategies. This book is divided into five chapters according to the structure of a marketing manual (definitions and research techniques, consumer behavior, marketing mix with a stronger focus on location), with a contribution, in the last chapter, on mobile marketing even if information and communication technologies are present in all the chapters.
Chapter 1 attempts to define spatial marketing as distinct from geomarketing and concepts and techniques to understand how mapping software adapted to geomarketing works.
Chapter 2 summarizes knowledge of the consumer’s spatial behavior outside the points of sale as well as in the points of sale, without forgetting the cultural specificities linked to spatial diversity that product globalization has not eliminated. This chapter will mainly deal with shopping in its spatial dimensions.
Chapter 3 focuses on the spatial marketing mix, that is, the combination of the famous 4 Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) (McCarthy 1960) with the spatial diffusion of products, geomerchandising and geopricing, geopublicity, direct marketing, now interactive marketing and sales force management. The third P (Place) will be discussed in Chapter 4.
Chapter 4 deals more specifically with georetailing since location methods were the first geomarketing management applications. Retailers are major users of geomarketing techniques, especially for setting up their points of sale, but we will see that other uses are possible.
Chapter 5, after recalling some considerations on e-commerce, covers both mobile shopping on the consumer side and mobile marketing on the business side, as well as m-commerce and mobile ICT applications, that is, smartphones and tablets, with their uses of geolocation in marketing.
1 1 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/retailing.