Page 240 - Marketing Management

IDENTIFYING MARKET SEGMENTS AND TARGETS | CHAPTER 8 217

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Nevertheless, age and life cycle can be tricky variables. The target
market for some products may be the psychologically young. To target
21-year-olds with its boxy Element, which company officials described
as a “dorm room on wheels,”Honda ran ads depicting sexy college kids
partying near the car at a beach. So many baby boomers were attracted
to the ads, however, that the average age of Element buyers turned out
to be 42! With baby boomers seeking to stay young, Honda decided
the lines between age groups were getting blurred. When it was ready
to launch a new subcompact called the Fit, the firm deliberately
targeted Gen Y buyers as well as their empty-nest parents.

LIFE STAGE People in the same part of the life cycle may still differ
in their life stage. Life stage defines a person’s major concern, such as
going through a divorce, going into a second marriage, taking care of
an older parent, deciding to cohabit with another person, deciding to
buy a new home, and so on. These life stages present opportunities
for marketers who can help people cope with their major concerns.
GENDER Men and women have different attitudes and behave
differently, based partly on genetic makeup and partly on Avon’s marketing is laser-focused
socialization. 10 Women tend to be more communal-minded and men more self-expressive and on women.
goal-directed; women tend to take in more of the data in their immediate environment and men to
focus on the part of the environment that helps them achieve a goal. A research study examining
how men and women shop found that men often need to be invited to touch a product, whereas
women are likely to pick it up without prompting. Men often like to read product information;
women may relate to a product on a more personal level. 11
According to some studies, women in the United States and the United Kingdom control or
influence over 80 percent of consumer goods and services, make 75 percent of the decisions
about buying new homes, and purchase outright 60 percent of new cars. Gender differentiation
has long been applied in clothing, hairstyling, cosmetics, and magazines. Avon, for one, has built
a $6 billion–plus business selling beauty products to women. Marketers can now reach women
more easily via media like Lifetime, Oxygen, and WE television networks and scores of women’s
magazines and Web sites; men are more easily found at ESPN, Comedy Central, Fuel, and Spike
TV channels and through magazines such as Maxim and Men’s Health. 12
Some traditionally more male-oriented markets, such as the automobile industry, are beginning
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to recognize gender segmentation and changing the way they design and sell cars. Women shop
differently for cars than men; they are more interested in environmental impact, care more about
interior than exterior styling, and view safety in terms of features that help drivers survive an acci-
dent rather than help avoid one. 14
Lessons learned from its European
customers have helped Victoria’s
Secret to successfully target
Victoria’s Secret Victoria’s Secret, purchased by Limited Brands in 1982, women in North America and
has become one of the most identifiable brands in retailing other markets.
through skillful marketing of women’s clothing, lingerie, and
beauty products. Most U.S. women a generation ago did their
underwear shopping in department stores and owned few
items that could be considered “lingerie.” After witnessing women buying
expensive lingerie as fashion items from small boutiques in Europe,
Limited Brands founder Leslie Wexner felt a similar store model could
work on a mass scale in the United States, though it was unlike anything
the average shopper would have encountered amid the bland racks at
department stores. Wexner, however, had reason to believe U.S. women
would relish the opportunity to have a European-style lingerie shopping
experience. “Women need underwear, but women want lingerie,” he
observed. Wexner’s assumption proved correct: A little more than a
decade after he bought the business, Victoria’s Secret’s average cus-
tomer bought 8 to 10 bras per year, compared with the national average