Rediscovering Market Segmentation - Week 7 Reading Reflection

What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

I was surprised by the different ways in which a customer can be segmented. The author of the article describes a type of segmentation that influences a customer up to a point where he or she starts thinking in detail about a particular brand. Daniel Yankelovich, the author of the article states that nondemographic segmentation could be used to create advertising that can influence consumers, but that it should be used in different ways in order to make an impact on consumers. Another part of the article that impacted me was how the author describes the “gravity of spectrum behavior” as an essential tool that could help marketers know the importance that a consumer place on a product or product category.

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

One part of the reading that was confusing to me was when the author is trying to describe how psychographic segmentation can improve the way marketers segment the customers. I believe that D. Yankelovich should use some other examples when trying to describe this point which is essential for the readers to understand the sense of the article.

If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask the author the following questions:

•        The nondemographic segmentation should be applied at what stage of the market segmentation within a company?
•         Are there any points that a company requires to have in order to utilize nondemographic segmentation? Is it compatible to all companies in any industry?

Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I believe that the author should recognize that the market segmentation process that he proposes is not always effective. D. Yankelovich and D. Meer indicate that the predictive power of marketing studies based on demographics was no longer strong enough to serve as a basis for marketing strategy, which I believe is not true in all cases. I believe that both authors should include circumstances specific scenarios in which their theory can be applied.