The main questions concerning market identification are provided in the opening quote of Rudyard Kipling-who, buys what,where, how and why?Regarding the main questions, David Tonks mentioned that market can be identified by using a mix of variables which can be grouped into two categories: ‘general’ and ‘behaviour’ (1995:3). Table1 shows the different types of ‘general’ and ‘behavior’ variables.
The trem’general’ is used for those variables which define and describe the customers but which do not identify in a direct way acts of purchase, acquistion or consumption. They thus answer the question ‘who?. For instance, TV region is a general variable which may or may not be associated with some aspects of buying,owning, or consumption. ‘Behaviour’ variables answer the left question- what do people buy and where,when,how and why do they buy it?For instance,usage rate for a particular brand is a behaviour variable since it concerns a particular characteristic of consumption. insert taBLE HERERegarding that market can be identified by using a mix of variables,There are 3 keys to identify market:1)which behaviour variabless can be used 2)which general variables can be used 3)which mix of behaviour and general variables can be used. 1.
Which behaviour variables can be used?A first level scan of a market to identify suitable variables should create the form of a list to establish all significant possibilities. Im most cases,the following will be the most useful(David Tonks,1995). 1)Benefit sought:-What particular benefits or needs do they expext from the product?2)Perception and attitudes:How is the product perceived and what are the attidudes towards the product?3)Product preferences:What do they prefer and how do they choose between brands?4)Product usage/purchase rates:Are they non-users, medium users, heavy users?Are they solus users in that they only buy one brand?5)User/buyer status:Are they current users, former users, non-users, potential users, regular users, first time users?Are the buyers of interest as well as the users?6)Loyalty status:What degree of brand loyalty do they display?Is it strong,medium,weak?7)Marketing factor sensitivity?How do they resond to the various marketing influences?Are they susceptibly to price or to advertising?8)Purchase situation and occasion:Is it an impulse or considered purchase?Is the context social or business?What is the setting for the purchase?9)Media habits:What media are they exposed to?The last category,Media habits,is a behaviour varible which is not,At least not directly, relevant to the product in question.It is this category which provides an important link with the general variables.From this list, a target segment for men ‘s aftershave lotion might be identified as potential low brand invovlement and loyalty, who buy on impulse, who are price sensitive and who read particular specialist magazines.May permutations are possible and at this stage, the choice can be considerable.For a broad understanding of the market and its component parts, benefit sought, purchase and usage patterns and brand loyalty will be important.Which general variables can be used?These variables are very improtant to trraget market.Again,there is a mix of measures.In most cases,we usually categorize these measures by objective of them.Geographical regionIt is very common in marketing to use geographical region to identify market.TV regions have the specific advantage of allowing relatively easy and perhapscheap access to desired target audience.Furthermore,some buying behaviour is strongly relevant to region.Of some interesting,as for multinational brands or global brands,target market is identified crossing geographical boundaries.DemographicsDemographics contains the familiar variables of age,sex,social grade,family size,family life cycle, income, occupation, terminal education age, religion, race and nationality.Generally,All these variables have advantages with geographical area.First,they are quite easy to measure compared with some other variable types.Second,they are easy to understand.Third,they are well established.However,the issue extent to which they can discriminate buying behaviour in some way which is useful to the organization implementing a policy of target marketing.For instance,if the concern is with differtiating between users and non-users of men’s aftershave lotion then taking a demographic such as age will be of little value if the age profiles of users and non-users are identical.Particularly,family life cycle and social grade are significant ganeral descriptive variables.insert table 2 hereWhile age merely will often discriminate buying behaviour,the existence of children in a family unit will be a prime determinant of lifestyle and later buying behaviour.Table 2 shows a typical transformation of the population into conventional life-cycle segments.With this classification, the ‘young, post-family’segment could be interesting to many organization since it contains high income.In the UK,social grade is very often approached as a way pf classifying consumer markets.Social grade is based on the occupation of the head of houshold.The classification is given in table3insert table 3 hereHowever,there has been argument about the value of social gradeas method of identifying consumer market.David Tonks(1995:502) mentioned tat some scholars have suggested tha the method conceals rather than ot reveals and particularly that the implicit assumption between social grade and income is frequently incorrect.For example,in the case of a coal miner (Group D) and a vicar (Group A or B).The groups are very large so that the popular combination of C1/C2 contains 54 percet of the adult poplulation.What may also be a consideration is that while social grade,as a crude and instant general descriptor variable,is probably as good and as bad as it always has been,marketing people are now attracted to more sophisticated and more powerful systems for identifying markets.GeodemographicsThe techniques and the usage of this method have emerged over last 15 years.In some areas, the usage is very popular.It is dramatically developed as a result of dissatisfaction in other methods and cheaper operating cost .One common feature of geographic method is that they are entirely based on approaches where a large number of general variables are employed.Regarding the complex and various nature of consumer behaviour, it is obvious that identifying market considering only one factor tends to be inappropriate.With geodemographics,segments are identified accirding to pros and cons with a wide range of variables.Most of systems include at least some data on demographics and household formation variables taken from the census.Some systems also regard further data such as financial information.The most well-known of the geo-demographic brands are ACORN,MOSAIC,PIN and Super Profiles.IN te case of MOSAIC,58 types are identified using data from census,the electoral regoster and other
