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Of all the marketing strategies,
one of the most critical ones
is the STP strategy or the Segmentation,
Targeting and Positioning strategy. Segmentation
is the process of dividing the market into various groups of customers
who share a similar set of needs and wants. Based on this,
marketers target smaller, better-defined customer groups with specific
needs, and develop distinctive product offerings to satisfy them, by
using different positioning strategies (Kotler and Keller,
2006). Targeting and positioning can be
done effectively only when the segments are clear to the marketer. While
there are many options for segmentation based on demography
(age, occupation, sex, family size), geography (climate,
density, population), psychography (lifestyle, values, personality) and
behavior (usage rate, usage status, loyalty, etc.), age-based segmentation is
fast gaining importance in the marketer's tool kit. One reason for this is
the apparent lucidity, operational ease and the vast potential
underlying age-based segmentation.
Children of different age groups - be they infants, toddlers,
young children or adolescents, form attractive segments for
marketers. Children are becoming a formidable segment in the marketing world
for two important reasons. First, children across the world and in
India, constitute a huge market as the population of children is
increasing. Second, the vast spending power they command based on their
discre-tionary income and influence on family purchases (Kennedy,
1995; Kim and Lee, 1997) makes them
an attractive market segment. Proponents of child-targeted
marke-ting and advertising have argued that due to their financial power,
children comprise a separate target market from adults (McNeal,
1987). |
