Key question to consider today:
Do we need to segment and target?

Bruce McColl, the Global CMO for Mars,
“I’m not a great believer in targeting,” he explained to the
audience. “Our target is about seven billion people sitting
on this planet…..Our task is to reach as many people as
we can; to get them to notice us and remember us; to
nudge them; and, hopefully, get them to buy us once more
this year.” Marketing Week 12 April 2016

A modern marketing debate:
• Byron Sharp: Marketing is about building physical and mental
availability for your brand (sophisticated mass marketing to maximize
reach)
• Mark Ritson: Targeting is strategy. Separates good companies from
bad.

• Discuss types of market segmentation
• Look at activities and decisions in market segmentation
• Define the market to be segmented.
• Discuss segmentation in the public sector
• Discuss the importance of targeting
• Challenge current perceptions of segmentation and
targeting

Week 4 Readings
5
Cravens & Piercy: Strategic Marketing 10e
Chapter 3: Strategic Marketing Segmentation
Ch 6: Market Targeting and Strategic Positioning
West, Ford and Ibrahim 3e
Chapter 5, Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning
Market Customization: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (2006) in Marketer’s
Toolkit: The 10 Strategies You Need to Succeed. Harvard Business School Press.
Joris Zwegers and Dmitri Seredenko; What’s Wrong With Segmentation? Marketing
News, American Marketing Association, 2017.
Marie Oldham, Challenge Byron Sharp and grow your brand. Campaign, VCCP January
05, 2017
Gordon Wyner; How Segmentation Provides the Roadmap to Success. Marketing
News, American Marketing Association, 2017. 31 May 2016.
1-6
Where it all started
Wendell R. Smith: Product Differentiation and Market Segmentation as Alternative
Marketing Strategies Journal of Marketing, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jul., 1956), pp. 3-8