Volumi di offerta e marketing. Il caso dei prodotti agro-alimentari tipici

Volumi di offerta e marketing. Il caso dei prodotti agro-alimentari tipici (di Gervasio Antonelli) - ABSTRACT: In recent years many studies have pointed out the importance of applying business marketing techniques to firms in the agro-food sector. In the perspective attention was mainly focused on the strategies underlying traditional marketing management approaches. Thus, this paper aims to assess both extent to which marketing is applied, and the way in which it is, by the firms and their Consortia operating in the sector of typical and traditional agro-food Italian products recognized by Regulation (EEC) n. 2081/92 as Protected Designation of Origin. The first part of the paper displays an analysis of the traditional marketing management approach in order to rise the question about the appropriateness of its main prescriptions for marketing strategies concerning small and medium-sized agro-food firms. Then, it draws the attention on the growing importance of relationship marketing and shows how the main features from both sides of supply organization and demand specificity of typical products provides evidence about the usefulness of an approach to marketing in the agro-food sector from the point of view of a relationship perspective. The study considers the development of marketing strategies of typical products depending also on the whole production at Consortium level. The second part of the paper deals with an empirical survey carried on a sample of Consortia for Protection of Italian typical products, like cheese and ham, in order to investigate their marketing strategies as well those carried on indipendently from their associated single firms. The results show that Consortia and single firms share the marketing mix in a such a way that the former controls mainly the quality of products and the latter the selling and pricing strategies. However, while larger processing firms try to develop their own effective marketing strategy under an own brand, small producers rely mainly on the marketing activities conducted by Consortia. Further, although all Consortia show a strong interest in marketing and the need to develop general promotion of the Protected Designation of Origin brand, their approach to market seems more consistent with a production oriented philosophy than a marketing orientation philosophy. Finally, the paper shows the importance of better co-ordination and co-operative relationships between the different actors of the supply chain to develop a more effective marketing strategy in the sector of typical products.