Segmentation...

This lecture introduced us to the importance of segmentation when trying to identify a target audience for a certain product or service. We looked at ways in which things can be segmented, and the list is endless. Some of the most common ways to segment a market seem to be gender, age, social class and demographics etc. Once you have this information about a person, it is then easy to go on and predict more about their lifestyle, therefore being able to target them as your market audience.

Segmentation is:

“based on the observation of evolution of demand and represents a more precise and rational adaptation of the product and the marketing effort to meet customer or user demands” (Smith 1957)

“the subdividing of a market into homogenous (or similar) subsets of customers, where any subset may conceivably be selected as a target market to be reached with a distinct marketing mix." (Kotler 2000)

We looked at the changes of product variety through from the Victorian times where for example, carbonic soap was used as a multi cleaning product through from washing hair to cleaning washing. The choice we have in supermarkets now is endless; the industries are now acting on the increasing demand of their customer, in providing a basic product evolved in many different ways. In particular we looked at shampoos and toothpastes, being able to identify at least 15 for each. Are all these different types of product needed? Probably not. But in today’s society where everyone is so anxious about being perceived in a positive way, marketers can take advantage of the insecurities shown by their target market, and make their consumers THINK they need their new improved product, and so the cycle goes on. Maybe shampoo for curly hair works no differently to that of shampoo for straight hair, but it is what the marketers make the consumers believe that matters, and this is how new products will continue to be produced year after year.


We looked at the work of Doyle and his theory on STP Marketing. S = Segmentation, T = Targeting and P= Positioning. All 3 of these stages are vital for a product or service to be successful. It is easy to think of the process as a pizza. The pizza will be cut into slices; these represent the different segments of the market. You then choose a slice; this slice is your chosen target segment...the section of the market you will be aiming your product or service at. Finally, you choose the best part of the slice, and this part is the desired position; the area that is the best place to get your product or service out to your market.


We also learnt the importance that segmentation plays in marketing. By choosing your target market, you can match the product or service in a better suited way, therefore matching more closely to the needs of the customer. If this is done well then profit levels will become hugely enhanced. If the product or service is matched well to the customer needs, this could lead to retaining customers through loyalty to that product or service. Finally we looked at how segmenting markets makes it easier to get the message that you want to give out in a clear and understood way. If you did not segment your market and sent out the same message to a variety of different target audiences, the message could be perceived in the wrong way leading to an unwanted result.


After learning about the theory behind segmentation, we then went on to do a practical task. This was to look at a food shopping receipt and try to analyse what kind of a person the consumer was. Laura and I took the longest list so purely from this decided that it was shopping for a family. We had to draw a word person to show as much as we could about the person, and when revealed the true identity, we had almost got it spot on! Just goes to show how much information you can get about someone from such a small amount of information. This is the same kind of basis marketers need to work from. They get their snippet of information about the target audience and build on it from there. For example, if you find out someone has a W1 postcode you can automatically work out what their lifestyle is likely to be.

Below is an advert for the new lynx chocolate, the advert is very clearly aimed at a carefully segmented market; the young male wanting to attract female attention.

Experiment time!

This session was aimed to put the theory of perception into practice through group experiments. The experiments look at the perceptions you can make through taste, smell, touch and sight.
The first experiment was a taste test using diet Pepsi and diet coke; 8 cups of each drink were issued to 4 girls and 4 boys to make the test as fair as possible. Before trying the drink, everyone had said that they preferred coke to Pepsi, yet when trying the drinks anonymously, everyone sided with the diet Pepsi over the diet coke, thinking that the Pepsi was the coke. This experiment shows that maybe people think they prefer the coke simply because of how they perceive the brand.

The second experiment was done with 3 different types of chocolate. The team leading this experiment were looking for the nicest chocolate in order from best to worst as well as the order of pricing. Because Britain is a nation with a very sweet tooth, it was not difficult for all the tasters to say not only the order from best to worse, but could also identify the brand of each chocolate. The 3 types were Cadbury’s Galaxy and a supermarket value brand. This shows that the brands have evolved their product to stand out from all others, not only through taste, but also through shape (with galaxy’s recent shape of chocolate being very distinct).


The next experiment was run by Laura and I. We had a sheet of paper with various images on; all of which could be interpreted as different images dependent on the viewer’s perception. The first image was of the image in my above blog...do you see the young or old lady? Out of 8 participants, 4 boys 4 girls, 7 of them saw the young lady with only one girl seeing the older lady. We also had an image of an elephant with a deceptive number of legs. All four boys simply said 4 legs without thinking or analysing the image, whereas all 4 girls spent a lot of time trying to decipher each leg, all coming up with an answer of 5. This adds to my theory from the last blog that males think in a much more simple way than females...in the real world elephants have 4 legs, therefore the image must have 4 legs. Some of the images proved a varied mixture of perceptions, with up to 4 different images seen. This experiment helped to show how subjective image perceptions are, and therefore how careful advertisers have to be in order to get their target audience to perceive the message portrayed in the way they want them to.

The next experiment was to try and identify various shampoos through smell and touch. The girls taking part in the test were overall the best at identifying certain shampoos such as dove and L’Oreal elvive, this was partly through smell and through feeling the shape of the bottles. Another shampoo that was put into a stereotype by all participants was a shampoo for males; this was identified by the type of smell and through the masculine shape of the bottle. Again this test shows the importance of how you market your product, Dove has done this well as almost all of the girls taking part identified it through its unique curved bottle.

The final experiment was done with men’s aftershave. There were 3 bottles disguised and lettered A B and C, the aim being to state the favourite through to least favourite and in order of price range. The results showed that the least likes scent was in fact the most expensive and the most liked scent was the cheapest. This result was consistent from all participants. One of the brands was also identified through scent alone, showing how important it is for marketers to get their product right before it becomes associated with a brand that it could potentially destroy if it was done badly.

The idea of perception

Image from http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/glossary_color/images/old-young-w.gif

Perception defined by Wilkie is "the process of sensing, selecting and interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world". On a broader scale, Schiffman and Kanuk sum up perception as "how we see the world around us"; this definition shows how perception is an extremely personal interpretation. The image above demonstrates this point...some may straight away see an old lady, others may not be able to see this at all but see a young lady looking over her shoulder.

In todays lecture, we started looking at the differences in how people perceived situations, it was extremely interesting, especially looking at the differences in perceptions between genders. The conclusions of various activities produced results that would suggest women have a lot more in depth perception levels, whereas men are far less analytical of situations, and only make perceptions on what meets the eye. One activity that showed strong trends of the above results was an activity involving allocating appropriate names for paint colour charts. The most prominent result was where the girls called a certain shade "mediteranean sunset" and the boys went for plain "orange". This strengthens the point that girls tend to be a lot more analytical and perceptive than boys.

We also looked at "The black box model" or the model of buyer behaviour. The assumption is that you start with the marketing stimuli, (the 4 P's or "the marketing mix"...product, price, place, and promotion) which is then considered with other external stimuli such as the individuals perception on economics, politics and culture etc. The next stage of the model is where the buyer's characteristics and decision process influences the response, before finally all the inputs are added up to form a final decision.

Above is a diagram to show the marketing mix and how it works. http://www.netmba.com/marketing/mix/

Another theory analysed was that of Kotler and his Buyer Decision Process. His theory states that it is compulsory to pass through 5 stages when making a decision about purchase. The first step is the need for recognition. If the product is not recognised then the process can go no further. The second stage of the model is the information search. This may be done either consciously or subconsciously and is where you decide whether or not the product being considered is good; it can be done by looking back at past experiences and knowledge of the product. The third step is evaluating any alternatives, this would be to decide whether you have got the produc most suited to your wants and needs. The next step is to decide whether or not you want to make the purchase. This may be influenced by factors such as the standard of the product...are you only satisfied with it, or are you delighted by the product? Finally is the post purchase behaviour. This would occur after the purchase has taken place, with the behaviour being affected by how pleased you are with the result of the product.

Although Kotler states how important it is to pass through each and every one of these stages in order to be pleased with the outcome, it is not necessary in the case of impulse buying. Impulse buying is a purchase that you do not want or need to think about before deciding to get it, with impulse buying, the middle three of Kotler's steps are irrelevant.

Reflection of the Purple KA.....

So this is what it feels like to be a proper student! My first lecture on "Understanding the Customer" and I already have millions of thoughts and questions flying around my head! I now dont feel too bad about putting people into stereotypes withing the first 2 seconds of seeing them... I'm not the only one! We had a poor visitor in class today, standing there silently in front of us all, whilst we said exactly what we thought of her; from what car we thought she had to thinking she was a beauty therapist who loved horseriding! We were all completely wrong with our judgements...just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Despite probably embarassing the girl hugely, it was a laugh a minute for us making up her entire life history purely from looks alone.

We spent time studying the theory of Russell W Belk, the concept of "me" and "mine". The idea behind the theory was completely logical, if something of mine was lost or stolen that had any kind of value be it sentimental or monetary, I would be gutted! Chances are I could live without most of my belongings, never the less, I would still make a huge fuss! It is belongings that make a person into who they are. By losing something that belongs to us, it is like part of an identity being taken away from you.

We tried playing a game to test out Belk's theory by all bringing in anonymous belongings and sharing them amongst the group. The game involved trying to make perceptions about the owner of the items without actually knowing who they were. Some objects were extremely easy to match with the owner, proving the point that possessions say a lot about who you are. "You are what you have" is therefore in my opinion a very accurate statement.