Author
Listed:
- Patrizia de Luca
- Yalda Maria Jahangiri
Abstract
This work integrates the studies on niche marketing, focusing on a niche of particular social value, namely foods for special medical purposes (Afms), which represent the prevalent or only treatment for people with special and rare diseases. In order to promote compliance with dietary therapy through an improvement in the satisfaction of the persons concerned, it becomes essential for companies targeting this market to focus on the customer and develop adequate knowledge economies. After a theoretical framework and a description of the context, this paper presents the results of a qualitative research on the Italian market of Afms, destined to the therapeutic treatment of a specific pathology, phenylketonuria, whose only cure is the observance of a strict dietary scheme. Through the netnographic method, applied to a Facebook group created in Italy by users interested in the topic, the multiple voices expressed in the conversations by the members of the online community were analysed. The results allowed to answer the research questions aimed at understanding the consumers’ attitude towards these foods, the factors influencing the preferences towards different products and brands and the possibilities of contributing to the creation of value for this restricted group of customers, also in terms of improving their quality of life. The present study intends to provide a twofold contribution. On the one hand, it intends to integrate the knowledge on niche marketing, with the analysis of a field with a significant social value, so far left to a prevalent analysis of a medical-healthcare nature. On the other hand, through the analysis of patient/consumer behaviour, it intends to give a support to the creation of value through strategic choices focused on the customer and innovative demand-pull logics.
Suggested Citation
Patrizia de Luca & Yalda Maria Jahangiri, 2021.
"Niche Marketing. A Research on Food for Specific Groups,"
Micro & Macro Marketing, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 569-592.
Handle:
RePEc:mul:jyf1hn:doi:10.1431/101834:y:2021:i:3:p:569-592
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mul:jyf1hn:doi:10.1431/101834:y:2021:i:3:p:569-592. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rivisteweb.it/ .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.