This single marketing mix consists of one type of product with little or no variation, one price, one promotional program aimed at everyone, and one distribution system to reach all customers in the total market. Market Segmentation Approach. A market segment is a group of individuals or organizations, within a market, that share one or more common characteristics. The process of dividing a market into segments is called market segmentation . As Figure 12.2 shows, a firm using this approach directs a marketing mix at a segment rather than at the total market.
Marketers use a wide variety of segmentation bases.
Those bases most commonly applied to consumer markets are shown in Table 12.3 . This information is provided as a guide for classroom discussion of the questions at the end of the Examining Ethics boxed feature in this chapter. One view is that if the product is legal, then the organization that makes it should be able to promote it based on the right of free speech. However, there have been several court decisions that place limits on the right to free speech when the speech is commercial speech. That is, there are some limits placed on the promotion of certain products although they are legal products.