1b.

Survey Assignment
• Think of various product categories.
• How would you classify yourself in terms of the various segmentation schemes? (Ur
Final Project)
• How would marketing be more or less effective for you depending upon the segment
involved?

The three product categories are: (i) clothing (ii) electronics goods (iii) food items and
groceries.

Market segmentation in clothing: The clothing industry segments the market mainly on
the demographic basis of gender and income. Many companies uses the variable of
age as well. Clothes are targeted as per the different segment. People belonging to
middle class income group will prefer the value for money private labels and HNIs (high
net worth individuals) will prefer high street brands. I think i belong to the middle class
segment and would prefer buying value for money cloths and apparels.

Market segmentation in electronic goods: This market of goods like mobile phones,
laptops, washing machines etc. is segmented on the basis of demographics as well as
behavioral basis. Electronic goods industry segments the market on the basis of socio
economic group and income. The market is also segmented on behavioural basis. I
belong to the segment who buys these goods for their benefit purpose and do not do
impulse purchases.

Market segmentation in food items and groceries: This market is segmented on the
basis of demographics like age and socio economic group and on the basis of
psychographic factors. I belong to the segment who like to buy fresh food items and
food items that are organic (psychographic).

Marketing has to be targeted on the basis of segmentation. As i always seek value for
money and the benefits from a product, the marketing will not pursue me to undertake
impulse purchases.

The demographic segment schemes focuses on factors like the age or gender or the
socio economic group. For example a scheme based on the demographics will target
channels focused on the demographic variable. A company making educational toys will
run its schemes with a focus on children and their advertisements will appear in kids'
channels and magazines. Behavioral segmentation is done on the basis of consumer's
knowledge of the product and the use of that product. Different people seek different
benefits and the scheme under this type of segmentation should highlight those
benefits.

To me, the behavioral segment schemes will be more effective as i always look for the
benefits that i can have from a product. I usually make informed choices as per my
needs and requirements.
1a. Is mass marketing dead?

Take a Product and Explain Orally

• Take a position:
1. Mass marketing is dead. or
2. Mass marketing is still a viable way to build a profitable brand.

Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs, (Kotler, 2002) or even in
simpler words, that is done to attract and retain customer at a profit. Thus, we see marketing
management as the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing
customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value (Kotler, 2012).
This simple definition tells that marketing is basically reaching out & retaining more and more
customers.

Internet no doubt in any part of the world is an important place for advertising and marketing. Many
companies are using Internet to understand people’s tastes & preferences. Primarily Google and
Facebook are being used by many companies to figuring out what people like best and thus are
allowing companies to target their marketing in very specific ways. This is why these companies are
looking into what people surf for on the Internet.So from this perspective, mass marketing looks like
a dinosaur.

The widespread penetration of fast internet connections, smartphones and social media may lead us to
believe that advertising on traditional mass media has become a waste of money.We’re witnessing a mass
trend toward customization in marketing, aided by new software packages, social media and other
technology.
However we cannot completely refrain from the fact that Internet is not perfect for marketing. This is
especially true in more condensed urban areas. In these contexts, it would not be realistic to target
one segment of the population. More importantly, we need to realize that the world is becoming
more urban. In light of this mass marketing will still be important.
Traditional mass marketing hasn’t gone away, either. Marketers won’t stop trying to reach large swaths
of consumers in broad geographical areas any time soon, and they’ll probably continue using some of
the same methods for doing so. I think a better approach is to say that mass marketing is becoming less
important, but certainly it's not dead. So if to we were to take a stand today in 2016, I would say that
mass marketing has not died.
 Critics of mass marketing argue that it can’t work because it’s so “expensive”. This has to
be a flawed argument. How can something not work simply because it is expensive? Things
don’t fail because they’re expensive. In fact, things that are expensive are, in my experience,
likely to be of better quality and deliver a better experience. Yes, mass marketing is
expensive from a capital perspective, but that’s because it delivers mass audiences – usually
millions of consumers several times over in a campaign – at a very low unit cost. In other
words, mass marketing delivers mass value.
Example: If you are buying TV audience at £5 per 1000 reaching 20m viewers five times then yes, it
is going to cost £500,000 – but you will have delivered your message to a huge chunk of the UK
population in a medium that builds brand credibility like no other. The issue is not simply the overall
cost of the activity, but whether or not the activity is delivering the brand or sales shifts required.
Unfortunately, not many of mass marketing’s critics understand how this type of value works. It costs
a tiny fraction of 1p to reach a consumer for 30 seconds on TV. How many of them realise that TV
can be less expensive on a unit of audience basis than many online display, search or affiliate
channels?
  Another argument used is that mass marketing is on the decline as the demand by
consumers for personalization has increased. Compared with many years ago, there are
more people today who want to be different. Mass marketing is not targeted and thus it
reaches people who are not in your target audience. But do they realise that the whole point
of mass marketing today is mostly used to sell products that large segments of the
population want to buy? Food, drinks, home appliances, cars, computers, toys, mobile
phones, holidays, credit cards, bank accounts, mortgages, furniture and so on. Mass
marketing isn’t wasteful when used with products that almost everyone might want to buy in
the near future.
 WHERE this fact is true that advances in technology now let manufacturers create
specialty products much more economically than they could before, and because they can,
the market for many products has become extremely competitive; this has caused
manufacturers continue to refine their segmentation to appeal to more slices of the market.
 But equivalently it’s true that TV and newspapers are still the most effective
communication vehicles and way out in most of the Asian countries, which is one of the
major demand drivers in the economy for consumer products. Here maximum of the sales
takes place through mass marketing itself, and markets there have not been developed to
such an extent that you can target a really refined market. So this market segmentation
approach may be hit a in US but we should not forget that majority of the imports goes into
Asia , Africa etc where mass marketing is the only effective and cheapest way out.
 Traditional mass marketing still benefits companies like Apple. If your brand’s logo is
popular and identifiable enough, the masses may flock to it either way.
 People do not prefer to drink an unknown brand of soft drink, or use an unknown make of
PC, contract with a mobile phone network no-one has ever heard of or fly on that airline
whose name no-one can remember. The demand is always for brands like Coca-Cola,
Apple, Dell or IBM, phone calls through O2, Orange and Vodafone etc. Believe it or not if
mass marketing was to stop , the popularity and fame of brands will get reduced. The
international recognition these brands get, was achieved only via mass marketing and simple
ads by google adsence can’t upkeep the same effect atleast internationally.
 All over the internet one can find many results of the many tests, research projects, case
studies and evaluation papers designed to quantify the sales effect of mass media. Going
through the works of Simon Broadbent, John Phillip Jones, Byron Sharp, Erwin Ephron, Giep
Franzen or Colin MacDonald and their research projects, one can find plenty of empirical
work qualifying the argument that mass media isnot dead. Effective revenue generation still
takes place via mass marketing and though expensive cost of it also eventually gets
recoverd. Here’s an example. If a brand has a 10% share of a £200m category its share is
worth £20m. If a mass media campaign costing £500k helps the brand increase share by
10% from £20m to £22m, then the adpsend of £500k has secured £2m in sales.
With new technologies (such as database mining tools) having become available to marketers in
recent years, target demographics can be reached more efficiently (and cheaply) than ever before.
As such, the total cost per viewer, and ultimately the total marketing cost per sale have decreased
significantly.However one needs to understand that completely doing away with mass marketing is not
possible atleast at this point of time, where majority of the growth is trade led, and east Asian countries
have only been able to have an economy because of mass marketing and a trade based growth. So
considering an overview of today's age we can conclude that we need both mass marketing and targeted
marketing!