''Need does not exist but the desire or want can be created" (Ruth Hickmott, 2008)

Today's lecture addressed segmentation one of the key areas of marketing. Marketers are constantly trying to sort people into different segments so that they can be targeted and then their product or service can be positioned effectively within that market (STP Marketing). To demonstrate the difficulties that marketers have in segmentation we were asked to group a variety of shapes, numbers and colours and found that there were endless possiblities as it could be interpreted in any way desired.

Information about customers comes from a variety of different sources such as market research questionnaires and even information supplied from the seemingly harmless Tesco club card database. Tesco can now profile each of their customers using their database. This allows them to market products directly to the different segments of consumer which, in turn, generates profit.

Smith (1957) claims that “Segmentation is based on the observation of evolution of demand and represents a more precise and rational adaptation of the product and the marketing effort to meet customer or user demands”. Similarly, Kotler (2000) describes segmentation as
“the subdividing of a market into homogenous (or similar) subsets of customers, where any subset may conceivably be selected as a target market to be reached with a distinct marketing mix". All in all, both of these marketing heavy weights describe segmentation as finding out what the different groups of people want.

In the new Feria hair colour commercial, the product has been targeted at women desiring a change in hair colour. Loreal have segmented their product to young to middle aged women (this is apparent through the celebrities used) and to an audience which regularly dye their hair (shown through the use of listing the positives, seperating their product from another hair colourant).