Changes in Marketing Strategies during Recession

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to investigate the changes in marketing strategies of Greek food manufacturing companies due to the economic crisis started in 2010. In order to achieve the above research aim, face-to face semi-structured interviews with managers of 161 established Greek firms involved in food industry were conducted. The analysis of firms with changed marketing strategies due to economic crisis with the use of the principal components method explains the presence of seven leading profiles in the sample survey. They are: i) promotional oriented; ii) new product oriented; iii) seller oriented, iv) advertising oriented, v) cost-price oriented; vi) discounts oriented and vii) B2B market oriented. Based on the seven factor scores, a cluster analysis has been conducted and three homogeneous groups are identified