Undifferentiated Marketing
Undifferentiated marketing is a strategy where a company creates a single marketing mix and directs it at the entire market without segmenting the audience. This approach assumes that all consumers have similar needs and preferences. It often involves mass advertising and a standardized product offering. Undifferentiated marketing is also known as mass marketing.
5 Key excerpts on "Undifferentiated Marketing"
eBook - ePub- George Stonehouse, Bill Houston(Authors)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...We do, however, have to recognize that activities of companies can also shape the segments to some extent. We could expect, for example, that men and women may buy differently. If, in those markets, suppliers offer and promote different products to men and women, then this tendency will be reinforced. Three approaches to segment marketing Three broad approaches are recognized with respect to the ways that an organization can approach marketing to market segments (or sub-markets). Undifferentiated Marketing The first approach in relating to segmentation is called Undifferentiated Marketing. This means that the organization denies that its total markets are segmented at all and relates to the market assuming that demand is homogeneous in nature. The economies of a standardized approach to marketing outweigh any advantages of segmenting the market. Undifferentiated Marketing is appropriate when the market the organization serves is genuinely homogeneous in nature. In Chapter 13 we will encounter this concept in the context of internationalization and globalization. Companies such as Coca Cola, Levi jeans and McDonald's employ this strategy successfully because demand for their products does not vary much from country to country. Organizations that adopt this approach have standard products, standard packaging and advertising, and these differ little or not at all between countries. Differentiated marketing Companies that adopt differentiated marketing recognize separate segments of the total market and treat each segment separately. Different segments need not always be different in every respect – it could be that some standard products can be promoted differently to different segments because of certain similarities or common characteristics...
- John Lidstone, Janice MacLennan(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Only very large companies can undertake a ‘full market’ coverage strategy. Examples: Coca-Cola (beverage market), Ford (transport market). Large companies can cover a whole market in two ways: Undifferentiated Marketing, the company ignores market segment differences and pursues the whole market. Example: the early strategy of Coca-Cola – one drink, in one size bottle, in one taste. Undifferentiated Marketing is defended on grounds of cost economies. Differentiated marketing, here the company operates in most market segments but designs different programmes for each segment. Ford offers a different vehicle for different purposes (domestic and commercial) and personalities. Differentiated marketing typically creates more sales than Undifferentiated Marketing, but the costs are higher: ● production costs; ● administration costs; ● advertising and promotion costs; ● research costs, etc. Differentiated marketing can be used by minor players in the market to gain a foothold in a particular niche, i.e. by identifying an opportunity not directly concentrated on by the market leader (e.g. Losec, Tie Rack, Eco washing-up liquid). Selecting a strategy To decide on your product strategy, you need to answer four questions: Which segment? With what intent? With what message? Which target audience? Which Segment? To define a market segment as being attractive and worthwhile to exploit, four conditions must be met: Measurability: You must be able to measure the size of the segment so that you can monitor its size and your product’s performance against that of your competitors. Accessibility: You must be able to focus company marketing resources on the chosen segment; for example, if the sales force or other promotional means cannot reach the decision-makers in that segment, the segment is not accessible. Substantiality: The segment must be large and profitable enough to be worth exploiting...
eBook - ePub- Paul Reynolds, Geoff Lancaste(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...product, price, promotional and channels appeals) aimed or targeted at specific market segments. Marketing writers liken this targeting versus mass marketing approach to using a rifle approach as opposed to using a shotgun approach. This idea of how companies target their marketing efforts was put forward by D. F. Abell (1980) when he suggested targeting strategies based upon customer group concentrations, or customer need concentrations, or a combination of each. Table 5.1 illustrates how the idea works in practice. Table 5.2 shows a marketing strategy of complete coverage. This is termed Undifferentiated Marketing, and an appropriate example here might be a popular brand of washing powder/liquid. Table 5.3 shows a strategy that concentrates on a specialist want or wants that cover different customer groups. This is a differentiated marketing strategy. An example here would be an adhesives manufacturer who supplies the engineering, textiles, schools, office supplies and ‘do-it-yourself’ markets. Table 5.1 Customer wants/groups Customer wants Customer groups Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Want 1 Want 2 Want 3 Table 5.2 Complete coverage Customer wants Customer groups Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Want 1 X X X Want 2 X X X Want 3 X X X Table 5.3 Want satisfaction specialisation Customer wants Customer groups Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Want 1 Want 2 X X X Want 3 Table 5.4 Customer group specialisation Customer wants Customer groups Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Want 1 X Want 2 X Want 3 X Table 5.4 shows a strategy that concentrates on supplying a variety of wants to. a specific customer group, for example, a mining machinery manufacturer supplying the coal industry. This is also a differentiated marketing strategy. Table 5.5 shows a strategy of specialist supply where the company serves customer groups 2 and 3 with wants 1 and 3 respectively. An example is a spinner of carpet yarns who supplies carpet manufacturers, but who also manufactures and sells needle punch carpets to the motor trade...
eBook - ePubConsumer Profiles (RLE Consumer Behaviour)
An introduction to psychographics
- Barrie Gunter, Adrian Furnham(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Having said that, there are still instances where direction of marketing effort to the total market for a category of products is justified. For instance, the market may be so small that directing marketing effort to the total market may be the only profitable strategy. In another situation, heavy users may constitute such a considerable portion of the market that the obvious strategy is to concentrate on developing products for, and communicating with, these heavy users. Under different circumstances again, an organisation's product (its brand) may so dominate a market that its appeal is total: it elicits a positive response from all segments of the market and therefore there is little point in concentrating merely on one or two segments. These considerations aside, however, the whole marketing effort becomes more manageable when some key group is identified as the target market. Products can be developed more efficiently through close attention to a more homogeneous group of potential buyers. When the group has been identified, marketing communications are often easier and more economical. Costly wastage of advertising expenditure (e.g., due to overlapping groups with neither the means nor the intention to buy) can be avoided. Today's companies are finding it increasingly hard to practise mass marketing and in any case, mass markets are undergoing 'demystification'. Consumers will soon be able to enjoy a multiplicity of television channels supplied by terrestrial, satellite and cable distribution systems in addition to the numerous radio stations, magazines and newspapers to which they are exposed. In future, advertisers will be forced to design products that fit with the multiplicity of channels, with multiple retail outlets and with a multiplicity of discrete consumer target audiences. The necessity of subtle, sensitive target marketing has now received almost total recognition. Target Marketing Companies are increasingly embracing target marketing...
eBook - ePubCommercial Due Diligence
The Key to Understanding Value in an Acquisition
- Peter Howson(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...He came at it from the perspective of a single product company that could either aim to secure a ‘share of a broad and generalized market’ through product differentiation or aim for ‘depth of market position in the segments that are effectively defined and penetrated’ through market segmentation. Philip Kotler 2 added a third, mass marketing. Mass marketing is where the seller produces ‘one product for all buyers … the traditional argument for [this] is that it will lead to the lowest costs and prices and create the largest potential market.’ So far so good, but from this point on things start to get terribly confused in the marketing literature, largely it seems because Kotler 3 at first misunderstood what Smith had said about product differentiation. Unfortunately Kotler’s book went on to be the standard work. The result is that marketeers to this day see only two possibilities: mass marketing and segmentation. This oversimplifies and misunderstands what can be going on in a market. To Smith there was a very real difference between product differentiation and market segmentation. As he said: Strategies of segmentation and differentiation may be employed simultaneously, but more commonly they are applied in sequence in response to changing market conditions. In one sense, segmentation is a momentary or short-term phenomenon in that effective use of this strategy may lead to more formal recognition of the reality of market segments through redefinition of the segments as individual markets. To appreciate what may seem like a small, irrelevant, almost academic difference between product differentiation and market segmentation, consider the case of waterproof matches: 4 these may be bought for all sorts of reasons – for boating, for camping, or to light fires in the garden, or by smokers who don’t own a raincoat and so on. The company pursuing a product differentiation strategy develops waterproof matches to obtain a minority share of the broad market for matches...
