Page 179 - Marketing Management

156 PART 3 CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS

Marketers should also consider critical life events or transitions—marriage, childbirth, illness,
relocation, divorce, first job, career change, retirement, death of a spouse—as giving rise to new
needs. These should alert service providers—banks, lawyers, and marriage, employment, and
bereavement counselors—to ways they can help. For example, the wedding industry attracts
marketers of a whole host of products and services.

Newlyweds Newlyweds in the United States spend a total of about $70 billion on
their households in the first year after marriage—and they buy more in the first six months than
an established household does in five years! Marketers know marriage often means two sets of
shopping habits and brand preferences must be blended into one. Procter & Gamble, Clorox,
and Colgate-Palmolive include their products in “Newlywed Kits,” distributed when couples
apply for a marriage license. JCPenney has identified “Starting Outs” as one of its two major
customer groups. Marketers pay a premium for name lists to assist their direct marketing
because, as one noted, newlywed names “are like gold.” 18

OCCUPATION AND ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES Occupation
also influences consumption patterns. Marketers try to identify the occupational
groups that have above-average interest in their products and services and even
tailor products for certain occupational groups: Computer software companies,
for example, design different products for brand managers, engineers, lawyers,
and physicians.
As the recent recession clearly indicated, both product and brand choice are
greatly affected by economic circumstances: spendable income (level, stability,
and time pattern), savings and assets (including the percentage that is liquid),
debts, borrowing power, and attitudes toward spending and saving. Luxury-goods
makers such as Gucci, Prada, and Burberry are vulnerable to an economic down-
turn. If economic indicators point to a recession, marketers can take steps to
redesign, reposition, and reprice their products or introduce or increase the
One well-defined and attractive
emphasis on discount brands so they can continue to offer value to target customers. Some
target market for many firms is
firms—such as Snap Fitness—are well-positioned to take advantage of good and bad economic
newlyweds.
times to begin with.

Snap Fitness Although some gym chains struggled in the recession—
Bally’s Total Fitness filed for bankruptcy twice—24-hour Snap Fitness actually expanded
the number of its clubs, and its revenue doubled. The franchise chain did all this despite
charging members only $35 per month with easy cancellation fees. Its secret?
A no-frills approach reinforced by the motto, “Fast, Convenient, Affordable.” The
small gyms—only 2,500 square feet—typically have five treadmills, two station-
ary bikes, five elliptical machines, and weight equipment. What’s important is what
they don’t have—no classes, spa rooms, on-site child care, or juice bars. Few
clubs have showers, and most are staffed only 25 to 40 hours a week. The sweet
spot of their target market is married 35- to 55-year-olds with kids who live
nearby and are busy enough that they cannot afford more than an hour a day to go
to the gym. 19

PERSONALITY AND SELF-CONCEPT Each person has personality
characteristics that influence his or her buying behavior. By personality,we
mean a set of distinguishing human psychological traits that lead to
No-frills Snap Fitness was relatively consistent and enduring responses to environmental stimuli
perfectly positioned to weather (including buying behavior). We often describe personality in terms of such traits as self-
the latest economic recession. confidence, dominance, autonomy, deference, sociability, defensiveness, and adaptability. 20