Segmentation and Marketing

Segmentation must be seen as a process that involves marketers in many areas and at many different stages in the marketing process. Marketing research will be used to identify different customer groups with different product needs and these will be translated by product developers into product benefits. There is no single way to segment a market. A marketer has to try different segmentation variables to find the best way to view the market structure.

Segmentation is the process of splitting customers, or potential customers, in a market into different groups, or segments, within which customers share a similar level of interest in the same or comparable set of needs satisfied by a distinct marketing proposition.

This Calvin Klein advert represents several layers of segmentation: youth, gender, wealth and a lifestyle interest in fashion. The brand name keys into the young market using text messaging in shorthand.

"I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everyone." Bill Crosby

There are different types of segmentation which further helps marketers target consumers with more specific variables. These include geographical segmentation which divides the market into different geographical units, demographic segmentation which divides the market into groups based on demographic variables such as age, gender, occupation, religion and nationality, life-cycle segmentation which offers products or marketing approaches that recognise the consumer's changing needs at different stages of their life. Psychographic segmentation which divides a market into different groups based on social class, lifestyle of personality characteristics and behavioural segmentation which divides a market into groups based on consumer knowledge, attitude and the use or response to a product.

Adverts will not be successful if they do not bear any relevance to the needs and interests of the target audience. Detailed customer profiles should be developed for all market segments with an exact description of participants. For example, television or magazine adverts would not necessarily catch the eye of an elderly person as their wants and needs are not the same as they would be for a person in their 20's or 30's. This could be due to the upbringing of an elderly person in a different era where they lived through the war and experienced rationing so they are likely to use products that they are familiar with and will not be influenced by wanting to use the highly fashionable porducts on the market. The younger generation would be more attracted to adverts promoting beauty or fashion products as there is always the pressure to follow the latest trends and products that keep you looking younger for longer.

"Segment, segment, segment! Dark and Lovely cuts the market several ways to find their niche: race, age, gender and lifestyle (organics)." The advertising archives.

"The largest, fastest-growing segments are not always the most attractive ones for every company." Principles of Marketing

Testing and Identifying Perception

Today's session was based on discovering and interpreting perception using specific tests carried out by groups in the class. The first involved testing three different types of Coca-Cola: normal Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Three people volunteered to test the drinks and they were asked to distinguish each type. They all guessed the normal Coke variety correctly, but the responses given for the other two were mixed. They were then asked to state which one they would normally choose to drink and whether this was the same as the one they preferred in the experiment. In our group we chose chocolate as our product to investigate. We picked 5 different types of chocolate: Waitrose Belgian Chocolate, Asda Milk Chocolate, Tesco-more expensive range, Tesco-middle range and Tesco Value. We asked 5 individuals to test each type of chocolate then state which one they preferred and which one they disliked. We also asked them to decide which one they thought was the most expensive and the cheapest. After gathering the results from the experiment, it was interesting to see that not every person had chosen the same brand of chocolate as their favourite. The most preferred appeared to be the most expensive Waitrose chocoloate and the cheapest Tesco Value chocolate. The type that most people disliked was the more expensive range from Tesco. If we were to carry out this experiment again in the future, we could start by decreasing the total number of brands of chocolate used for testing from five to three. We would also supply some water to help wash down the chocolate. We could then have two different tests, one where the volunteers know which type of chocolate they are testing and another one where they are blind-folded. We could then compare the results to see if their opinions and perceptions of the different brands and packaging changes.

A test was carried out using the sense of smell. This involved different types of men's aftershave and women's perfume. Four people, 2 boys and 2 girls, were chosen to carry this experiment which aimed to see if people could distinguish different types without knowing the brands. It was interesting to see on collection of the results that in most cases the volunteers could not distinguish between the men's and women's perfumes. The last test carried out incorporated the sense of sight and the sense of hearing. A number of television adverts had been chosen but had been altered from their original state by inserting music clips over the top. We were to decide which version we thought suited the advert best and which one would be most effective for the product it was advertising. This was a very inventive and original test and it was interesting to see how the type of music used in an advert can really influence your desicision and opinion on the product.

Gestalt psychologists working in the 1930's researched the concept that animals and humans are bron with built-in ways of seeing and organising the world. They argue that for our ancestors the world was a dangerous place to be born into and babies needed to understand as quickly as possible what was going on around them. This ability to take limited information and attempt to make sense of it has become known as Gestalt or Closure and it stays with us for the whole of our lives.

Gestalt Psychology is a school of thought maintaining that people derive meaning from the totality of a set of stimuli rather that from an individual stimulus. Gestalt is a German word that roughly means whole, pattern or configuration, and this perspective is best summarised by the saying 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. There are 4 main principles that are based on work in Gestalt Psychology, these include: the principle for closure which implies that consumers tend to perceive an incomplete picture as complete. The principle of similarity that tells us consumers tend to group together objects that share similar physical characteristics. The figure-ground principle is where one part of a stimulus will dominate while other parts reced into the background. The final principle is stimulus ambiguity which is where a stimulus is said to be ambiguous when it does not correspond to an immediately recognisable shape or form.

Optical Illusions

Optical illusions are a good example of the way our brains take an object and perceive it in a way that makes sense to us. They test our visual perception and show that in many cases this type of perception is not always reliable.

An optical illusion occurs because the different cells and receptors of the eye perceive images and colors at different rates, which sometimes result in a false image being relayed to the brain. The brain receives information from receptors in the eye, but really, the eye only perceives a certain quantity of visual information at any given time, while our brain continuously decodes, constructs and reconstructs visual information, giving us the illusion of continuous sight. The right combination of colors, shapes, spatial relations, and other stimuli viewed by the eyes and reported to the brain during the relays of information can achieve the effect of an optical illusion.

Perception

In todays session, we discovered how perception is used in advertising to aim at different target markets. This may include the type of backing track used or the images used in the advert whether it is in a magazine or on television.

"Perception is the process of sensing, selecting and interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world." (Wilkie, 1994)

Perception is also a view about how we see the world around us and can be linked to stereotyping. A task we completed today invovled a page of paint colours taken from a painting guide. There were 4 four groups altogether, each with a different target market. In our group, we had to create a name for each of the different colours that would suit and appeal to our target market which was Retired - Well Off. We aimed our colour names at this market by thinking about activities people in this sector may participate in, inlcluding exotic holidays, trips to the theatre, gardening and dining. Some colours jumped out and we were able to create a name that fitted to the colour, but others, such as pale lilac, were more challenging. Other target markets included Young Urban Professionals and Children under 8 years. It was interesting to discover that with each category each colour had a different meaning and some colours were not suitable for a particular target market. For example, in the young children's category the section of very pale, neutral colours would not appeal to young children. In this instance, the category could be advertised so that it appeals to the parents rather than the child. Other colours aimed at this category were named specifically so that they would appeal to the younger generation. As an example, bright red could be changed to racing car red and pale pink could be named fairy dust pink.

Other tasks completed in this session included identifying book genres to the front cover of specific books. All the answers created were based on our perception that the images portrayed on the cover. Certain types of lighting or views in the illustration could lead to many possibilities of the what the book may be about. A picture that is very dark, with simple detailing could show that the book may be a thriller or mystery and be aimed at males, whereas a picture that is very bright and bold and has more complex detail could be aimed at females. Our last task was to make a connection between a piece of music and what advert it would fit with. Whether it would be Jewellery or perfume, a sports car or a food product. Features of the music that would help influence our decision could include the rhythm and beat of the music, the dynamics, instruments used, whether there are any lyrics and the general feel or ambience that the music gives you.

Understanding the Customer - Week 1

In today's lecture, we discovered how our first impressions of a person can influence the way we perceive them and their way of life to create a stereotypical image for that person. We also had the opportunity to study a number of possessions belonging to classmates, allowing us to create an image of a person, finding reasons why they initially bought the item and also what type of person we think would buy the specific item. For example, one of the items was a toy in the form of Beaker from the Disney programme 'The Muppet's'. In discussion, we decided that the owner of this item was most probably female, was unique and had her own style and is not afraid to voice her own opinions. She is also someone whose personality traits include being outgoing and fun-loving. Another part of todays lecture involved us creating, in the form of a mind map or a brainstorm about us as individuals, the possessions that mean the most to us and qualities that make us who we are and what make us unique. This gave us an opportunity to discover what we do as hobbies or jobs, how we perceive our personalities and things in our life that mean a great deal such as family and friends. In my opinion, the most challenging part of the session involved us thinking about other people's opinions of us and although challenging initially, it was very interesting to see how others' opinions either differed or in many cases were similar to how we personally perceive ourselves. In my experience, i always class myself as being quite shy and occassionally lacking in confidence whereas others would say that i am outgoing and very confident due to my background of competing in the equestrian sport of Eventing.

When thinking about our personal possessions and what they mean to us, we were able to link this to a theory created by Russell Belk. 'A key to understanding what possessions mean is recognising that, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, we regard our possessions as part or ourselves.' (Possessions and the Extended Self - Journal of Consumer Research 15 Russell Belk (1988))

Although i have never thought about doing a blog before, i feel it is a great way to record the information we learn in our lectures. It means that we can always refer to it for future knowledge. It is also very informative in the way that others can refer to each individual blog and also make comments and allow us to view and comment on other blogs.