Targeting, Segments and Positioning

Different consumers have varying desires and interests: witness the extensive array of products on supermarket shelves. This variety stems from diverse buying practices and basic variations of customers' needs and the benefits they seek from products. It is almost impossible to satisfy all customers in a market with a single product or service. Companies have responded by offering a proliferation of products and brands. Increasingly, therefore, companies have found it essential to move away from mass marketing towards a target marketing strategy where the focus is on a particular group of customers. This identification of target customer groups is market segmentation, where customers are aggregated into groups with similar requirements and buying characteristics. The Henry Ford Model "T" philosophy — you can have any colour as long as it is black — is no longer an appropriate one! Even some of the last remaining bastions of mass marketing have fallen, adopting — for a variety of reasons — a target marketing approach based on clearly defined market segments. Boots used to have a uniform concept; now there is Boots Pharmacy versus Boots Health and Beauty versus the Boots variety store. With the advent of the "green"