Marketing individual assinment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Marketing individual assinment - Essay Example From a scan of various internet and other sources, the worldwide toothpaste industry is comprised by thousands of formulations and hundreds of brands. According to Oligopoly Watch, in the year 2000, the toothpaste industry in the U.S. alone was worth USD 1.3 billion with two leading brands owning sixty percent of the market. As in most industries, the toothpaste industry necessarily conducts market segmentation activities in order to provide focus for production, sales and marketing programs that will target specific market segments. Market segmentation helps ensure high returns for production, marketing and sales expenditures. The process of market segmentation identifies parts or portions of the market that can be differentiated from one another. Within a segment, members are supposed to have the same characteristics, which are different from the characteristics of members in other segments. With the identification of these characteristics, marketers are able to better satisfy the needs of prospective customers. Since different customers may have different needs, it is not always possible to satisfy all customers by treating them in the same way (NetMBA 2007). As part of the bigger oral care business, the toothpaste industry segments the market both in terms of mass marketing and target marketing. Simplified formulations are marketed as regular, as against special, toothpaste to serve the mass market, treating the market as a homogenous group which appreciates anyway, a teeth cleaning paste. This is the reason why almost all brands have a 'regular' formulation. Through mass marketing, economies of scale are realized because products which appeal to a mass market results in savings from mass production, mass distribution and mass communication (NetMBA 2007). Toothpaste manufacturers also employ target marketing, which is the reason for the wide variety of formulations for the products they carry. They recognize the diversity of customers and do not need to please everybody with the same offering. Consumer markets are segmented according to geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics of consumers. Some geographic variables are region, continent, country, state, neighborhood, size of metropolitan area, population density, climate and other variables (NetMBA 2007). Toothpaste manufacturers with international operations use geographic segmentation in developing formulations with local appeal as well as marketing and sales programs that will be appreciated by the target segment. In 2000, although Colgate was the market leader in India, it faced stiff competition from Hindustan Unilever and low-priced regional competitors like Anchor Healthcare and Ajanta India. To combat their low-priced competitors, Colgate revita lized its Colgate-Cibaca brand and Hindustan Unilever, its Aim brand. Colgate-Cibaca, which is not a brand that is marketed internationally, effectively garnered the top position in the low-price segment in India (Comstrat 2006). Demographic segmentation variables include age, gender, family size, family lifecycle, generation, income, occupation, education, ethnicity, nationality, religion, social class (NetMBA 2007). In terms of