Contemporary Marketing Practices in Africa: Challenges and Success Factors

Marketing strategies play a crucial role in a firm’s effort toward gaining a competitive advantage in the dynamic marketplace, and the marketing mix is at the core of these efforts. The significant changes in consumer preference and choice put enormous responsibility on businesses to optimize their marketing mix strategies to be able to satisfy consumer preferences profitably. Within the field of strategic marketing, decisions on how to market one’s product or service have always been a problem, where the focus has been on placing the product at the best place with the best possible price. Thus, businesses need to proactively manage the marketing mix they offer by applying a suitable selection of marketing strategies. This chapter discusses some contemporary marketing practices adopted by businesses in Africa. The chapter further presents cases of some selected companies and how they implement their marketing strategies.