A grounded model of marketing strategy evolution

Drawing upon longitudinal case evidence from the New Zealand wine industry, this paper develops a grounded model of marketing strategy evolution, based upon longitudinal case studies. The findings identified four marketing gestalts (a relationship between the firm, the environment and strategy). Evolution of marketing strategies would be driven by changes in each part of this gestalt, with firm level changes often driving incremental changes in strategy, with environmental changes or deliberate strategic moves resulting in radical marketing changes. By utilising theories from organizational theory (such as population ecology) we identified four ‘right for their time’ strategies. Potential evolutionary paths are discussed.