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Dr. Dholakia gave a brief analysis of how segmenting the market will
develop the target market of a company.
Stressing that the needs of the market, the “Four P’s”
(product, price, promotion, place), will be beneficial financially and in
turnout time of their product. When the local availability of a product is
high is when marketers worry the most. Higher
availability indicates more competition which calls for more differentiation
of your company’s product, which is a major role the marketer plays within
the company.
Segmenting
the market is used to categorize customers into groups that display similar
needs and preferences. There are
many different types of segmentations that a firm may use and four key
variables including, demographics, psychographics, relationship level
(whether a consumer is profitable to the company) and the benefits sought.
The grouping by these common characteristics will determine the
market which a firm should reach and further, will determine how much
spending should be used to reach this specific segment.
If a firm were to target the entire population would be extremely
wasteful, in time and energy, wasteful, and nearly impossible to accomplish.
In marketing there are many variables globally.
For example what may be funny in the United States may be offensive
in another country. In the
United States tanning is considered attractive, whereas a woman who lives in
Japan will do almost anything to hide herself from the sun.
Not only are there different advertising strategies globally but
within the different generations there are also different stipulations.
The Dove advertisements are focused upon “real people” who are
not extremely thin and “perfect”. They
claim it is a celebration of their bodies.
Calvin Klein focused on the young generation creating an ad in black
and white with one male and one female who are highly attractive wearing
their jeans.
Comparison is also an effective way to communicate to a potential
consumer. One ad that Dr.
Dholakia presented was intended to portray a peach cooler to the social
class, with a beach ball indicating they lead the more aspired lifestyle.
Next to the peach cooler was a beer and alongside the beach ball
under the beer was a bowling ball. The
only words on the ad said, “Peach Cooler Please”.
Therefore, by choosing a peach cooler the consumer is lead to believe
they are leading a better life, it could be worse, or simply enjoying the
“better” aspects of life.
L.L.Bean uses a very catchy phrase in a multitude of advertisements
stating, “Don’t mistake a street address for where you actually live”
with a photo or a man standing waist deep in water next to a fishing boat.
L.L.Bean is a company providing apparel and accessories geared toward
the outdoors lifestyle, so the fisherman clearly knows he spends more time
in the water and needs the proper attire to remain comfortable.
Also, a home is where a person feels most comfortable so this
advertisement was made to appeal to consumers emotions.
VALS and PRIZM are two surveys designed to determine where a consumer
fits within a companies market, if at all.
VALS focus is on psychographic segmentation which measures the
lifestyle of a consumer by asking about activities they are involved in and
interests or opinions they may have. VALS
overalls main goal is to determine a person’s orientation.
PRIZM is geared toward the geodemographics, which segments people
according to the theory that people who live relative to each other will
have similar interests. This is
the social lifestyle that a person may lead.
Challenges that face marketers include new media, creativity
limitations, differentiation, cost efficiencies and effectiveness.
Mass Customization, although is decreasing in popularity, proved
efficient and surprising for taco bell who invited customers to their web
site to design their own burrito. Instead
of a low fat, low price burrito it was determined that what most people
desired was an overstuffed, fully loaded burrito at a higher price.
To conclude the presentation, Dr. Dholakia restated the importance of
market segmentation and target marketing to improve the efficiencies of a
firm. Since marketing costs are
increasing the demand for more efficient market research is also increasing.
Creativity is essential for analysis, design, and the implementation
of marketing programs. All of
this is done to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage over
competitors.
Personally, I found it interesting how Dr. Dholakia chose to
introduce herself and the concept of marketing with a quote from Henry Ford
about the Model T car in which he said, “Any color you want, as long as it
is black”. It is hard to
fathom that marketing went from “All we can provide you with is black
since we need to save money” to an undeterminable number of options in
regards to color, size, shape, utilities, accessories, etc.
Overall, I felt that Dr. Dholakia provided an informational,
interesting presentation which will be useful to many in the future.
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