South African Consumer Sentiment Towards Marketing

The purpose of this research is to determine the South African index of sentiment towards marketing (ICSM), both in South Africa as a whole and for the different ethnic groups making up its population. Such sentiments toward marketing practices are core indicators of the marketing system’s performance and provide valuable information to international marketing managers to select markets and to fine tune to the local perceptions about their marketing policies. The data for this research were collected via personal interview administrated surveys with 727 respondents across seven administrative regions in the Tshwane metropolitan area of South Africa. The finding reported in this paper for the South African sample as a whole, revealed that South African consumers seem to be more positive toward marketing practices in comparison to the other developed and developing countries belonging to transition economies. Furthermore slight positive and almost similar sentiments towards four of three the dimensions were revealed, with the negative sentiment towards retail being an exception.