The Quality of British Marketing: A Comparison with US and Japanese Multinationals in the UK Market

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study comparing the marketing strategies and organisations of a matched sample of British companies and their US and Japanese competitors in the UK. Hypotheses about Japanese marketing are tested and provide a framework for the comparative analysis of the marketing effectiveness of the three sets of competitors. The findings highlight significant weaknesses in the marketing effort of British companies, these being exacerbated by excessive focus on short?run financial gains. The US competitors, equally concerned with short?term profits, were less committed to the UK market than their Japanese rivals, their market position being in danger of deteriorating further as the Japanese close the technological gap between them. The Japanese were unmistakably aggressive, single?minded in their pursuit of market share and undeniably more market?oriented than their US and British counterparts. This research was funded by the ESRC.