Marketing and Society

This article discusses market segmentation, target market, and brand positioning in the context of Samsung. It covers the advantages and disadvantages of market segmentation, the types of market segmentation, and Samsung's target market. It also includes a consumer profile and brand positioning strategy.

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Marketing and society
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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
PART A......................................................................................................................................3
Market Segmentation:................................................................................................................3
Types of market segmentation...............................................................................................4
The advantages of marketing segmentation are:....................................................................6
The disadvantages of marketing segmentation are:...............................................................6
PART B......................................................................................................................................7
Target market:............................................................................................................................7
Brand positioning.....................................................................................................................10
Positioning statement:..........................................................................................................11
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................12
References:...............................................................................................................................13

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Introduction:
Samsung is a South Korean multi-national conglomerate company headquartered in
Seoul. Samsung comprises of many certified businesses, all of those falls under the brand
name of Samsung. Samsung is the largest conglomerate business in South Korea. Lee Byung-
chul founded the company in 1938 as a South Korean trading company. Over the next few
Samsung diversified its product in to insurance, textile, food processing and retail. In 1960’s
the company entered into the electronics industry. In 1987 after Lee’s death, Samsung was
divided into four business groups they are Samsung Group, CJ Group, Shinsegae Group and
Hansol Group. Since early 90’s Samsung globalised its electronic products and have formed a
huge amount of customer base in the market (Grobart, 2013). According to reports, Samsung
is the sixth largest company in terms of brand value. Samsung has a huge number of products
to offer to the customer- apparel, consumer electronics, medical equipment, automotive
chemicals, electrical components, semiconductors, telecommunications equipment and so on.
The company provides services like advertising, financial services, construction, hospitality,
entertainment and so on. Samsung earned an annual revenue of 305billion US dollar in the
year 2014 and the company also earned a net income of 22.1 billion US dollar. Samsung has
a total asset which worth529.5 billion US dollar (Nicolas Marin Ximenez, 2014). Currently
the company employs 489,000 employees in the organisation (Samsung.com, 2018).
Samsung target the consumer of age group from 20-50 or even older. Samsung target
a wide range of customer, which ranges from industrial standards devices to regular usage
devices (Glowik, 2016). The high-end devices target the customer with a higher income
group, apart from that normal device can be affordable by both the middle and lower section
of the society. Samsung provides devices, which gives full value for money; this helped them

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in capturing many market shares in the market. Samsung devices range from Java based
technology to Android technology, which gives the consumer the right to choose, and it
becomes affordable for the customer, as the price of the java devices is very low.
PART A
Market Segmentation:
Market Segmentation is an important part of marketing. Market Segmentation is a
process that divides the market of expected buyers into different segments based on income,
age, or any another characteristics (Weinstein, 2013). The main reason for segmenting the
market is to create personalised marketing mix for each group or segments accordingly.
Market segmentation helps in targeting a particular group of customers and reduces the risks
of failures or low revenue. It targets the market on the following basis:
 Gender: Segmenting the market is based on one of the simplest yet important factor
that is gender. The wants, interest and needs between a male and female differ at
many stages. Therefore, the managers highly focused on the different communication
and marketing strategies for both male and female. The gender segmentation can be
mostly seen in case of jewellery, clothing and cosmetics (Zhibin et al., 2013). Age group: Segmenting the marketing according to the age group of the consumer is
very important. Different age group of people cannot use most of the products
availbale in the market; this is why the customer segmentation according is important.
Segmenting the market according to the age group helps in making the marketing and
communication strategy more effective for the consumer (Chen, 2013). Income: Income is another important factor that to be considered while segmenting
the market. Income helps in deciding the purchasing power of the target market. It

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helps the manager to market the product as a want, need or as a luxury. The income
group can be divided into High-income group, Middle-income group and Low-
income group (May, Peetz and Strachan, 2013). Place:Segmenting according to the place means targeting the target market where the
potential buyers lives in abundance. It also means the group of customer, who will be
highly affected by the products use. Occupation: The occupation affects the purchasing power of the buyer similarly like
the income of the customer effects the purchasing power. Usage: Products usage acts as an important factor in segmenting the market for the
product. A user can buy the product for heavy, medium or light usage. Product
segmentation can also be used according to the product awareness. Lifestyle: Apart from physical factors, the managers also segment the market
according to the lifestyle. The lifestyle includes interests, hobbies, marital status,
vales, religion, society norms and other psychographic factors (Ramiz et al., 2014).
Types of market segmentation
Segmenting the market generally consists of four different types:
 Demographic Segmentation: Demographic segmentation segments the market based
on gender, age, marital status, income, family size, occupation etc. Demographic
segmentation is one of the most common segmentation practise that the managers use.
Demographic segmentation can be seen in all the industry for example, automobiles,
mobile phones, beauty products etc. The customer’s buying behaviour is highly
influenced by the demographical factors (Hamka et al., 2014).
 Geographical Segmentation: Segmenting the market according to the geographic
condition is highly important for the mangers. The need and the wants of the customer

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differ from region to region. For example, the need of an ice cream is high on the
desert areas that the mountain areas. The reason of using the product can also differ
from region to region. Geographic segmentation helps the manager to create a
different personalised marketing campaign for different customers.
 Behavioural Segmentation: Segmenting the market is also depends on the behaviour
of the customer’s behaviour. The usage, preferences, decision-making and the choice
all are taken into consideration while segmenting based on behaviour. The knowledge
of the customer about the product and the usage affects the purchasing decision of the
individual. The market can be segmented on the following basis:
Customer aware of the product
Customer who does not aware of the product
Potential buyers
Current buyers
Ex-users
First, time buyers, etc
Customer can be termed as brand loyal, brand-neutral or competitive loyal. They can
also be termed according to their usage of the product for example, a sportsperson
prefers an energy drink for its core purpose of getting enough energy but a non-
sportsperson may prefer the product just because they like the tastes of the energy
drinks (Wilson, Harper & Darling, 2013).
 Psychographic Segmentation: Psychographic Segmentation is done based on
lifestyle, attitude and personality of the consumer. Lifestyle and personality highly
influence the buying decision and the buying habits of the customer.

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The advantages of marketing segmentation are:
 Focus of the organisation: Customer Segmentation helps in increasing the focus of
the firm in the market segments. Better focus helps in increasing the revenue and
the profit margin.
 Increasing competitiveness: Once the focus of the organisation increases, it will
help the organisation in increasing the competitiveness in the market. For example
if an organisation increases the focus on the youngsters, the brand recall and the
equity among the youngsters will gradually increase.
 Market segmentation: Geographic segmentation helps in immediate expansion of
the business. If marketing segmentation is done for one particular territory, it will
also help in acquiring the nearby territory.
 Customer retention: By using the market segmentation strategy, Customer
retention can be done through the life cycle of the buyer.
The disadvantages of marketing segmentation are:
 Small segments- If the segment of the market is too small then the turnover of the
company will be low, which will affect the profit margin of the company (Sharma
& Suji 2016)
 Misinterpreting the consumer-It means bringing the right product in the market
but for the wrong consumers
 Costing- Targeting the segment is an important factor but costing should also be
considered. Costing means knowing how much to spend on a particular segment
on the society.

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PART B
Target market:
Target market means breaking the customer market into groups or segments and then
focusing on the marketing efforts on key groups or segments that consists of customers
whose desires and needs are match with the products or services that is offered to them.
Targeting the market can be a key to attract the customer, expanding the sales of the
organisation and making the business a global success.The benefits of target marketing are
that it makes the price, promotion and distribution of the particular products or services more
cost-effective and easier. It helps in focusing ain all the marketing strategies and activities.
Samsung targets a wide range of customers in the market that ranges from industrial
standard devices to regular day-to-day usage devices. The age group o people that Samsung
normally targets are from 20 to 50 years of age or even elder than 50 years of age. Samsung
is mostly into the electronic gadgets industry. The level of competition in the electronic
industry is very high. Samsung is an organisation that offers a various range of Smartphone
devices. Competitors like Apple, Sony mainly have a high range of devices that many of the
customers cannot afford. Samsung provides them the opportunity to avoid the same devices
with same features at a low price range so that everyone can afford. Thus, it is evident that
Samsung is targeting the market with a low-income group or middle-income group. Samsung
has also offered many high-end devices like Samsung galaxy note 8, which mainly targets the
tech lovers and the high-income group people. Samsung is acquiring the market of all its
competitors by targeting and bringing products of each and every age group of people.
On the age basis, Samsung is recently targeting the teenagers to early adults. This age
group of people mainly are the consumers of the Samsung’s smart phones as they are mostly

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tech savvy people. This customer’s group is growing day by day and they have the huge
spending power among all other customer group in the market. Adults between the ages 26-
50 is the largest portion of customer for Samsung’s product. This age group of people have
the highest potential of buying any products of Samsung.Samsung is targeting this age group
of people by bringing Samsung’s Smartphone, cameras, s-mart-television etc and household
products like vacuum cleaner or refrigerators. Samsung is expecting that this customer group
will grow in future.
Samsung’s devices are hard and durable and this helps Samsung in targeting the
market of customers who uses the devices in a regular basis.
In terms of geographical locations, Samsung prefers to do its business in developed
and developing economic nations. Samsung mainly operates it business in European and
American countries. Samsung’s high-end devices are mainly sold in the European and the
American countries. Samsung brought mid range devices for the Asian countries, where the
sale for the mid-range devices are more than the sale of high-end devices.
Primary buyers- Most of the revenue of a commodity comes from the primary
buyers. Primary buyers are the direct buyer of the commodity. These consumers account the
highest revenue of sales, and they have a common behaviour and characteristics (Wang, Tai
& Grover, 2013).
The primary buyer for Samsung device is the young generations who are purchasing
the Samsung devices for daily usage. They have a huge brand loyalty for Samsung. Apart
from young generation, the consumers who use Samsung’s household products are also the
primary buyers for the Samsung devices.

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Secondary buyers- The secondary buyers are the customers that are the probable
future buyers of the products. Their buying behaviours and the characteristics differs from the
primary buyers.
The secondary buyer of Samsung product is the referred customers or the family
members of the primary buyers.
Consumer profile:
Segmentation tool Details of customer profile
Name: Andrea
Geographic Sydney, Australia
(Density, topography,
Urban)
Demographic (Age,
Marital status, children
, income, occupation,
Education)
Andrea is Australian; she is a finance manager and works for
different social enterprises, she has an income of $80,000 per year, 2
daughter, holds a master degree in management.

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Behavioural (Usage
Rates, Occasion, brand
loyalty )
Psychographic
(Lifestyle)
Brand positioning
Brand positioning is a strategy that helps to position the brand in the market in such a
way that it creates an impression in the consumer’s mind (Jalkata & Keranen, 2014). In
today’s competitive world, brand positioning is an important factor that all the organisations
should consider. Brand positioning contains certain factors:
 The product should be unique than what its competitors are offering.
 The product should be applicable to all the markets.
 The product should be encouraging and significant to the small markets.
 The product should be helping the organisation to expand.
 Theproduct should help the organisation to achieve the financial goals of the
organisation.
Samsung is a brand with high brand value and a well-established customer market.
The pricing is done by taking the lower and the middle-income range people into
Andrea is a heavy user of Smartphone’s, she used to discover new
things and loves trying new products, she is a brad loyal customer
and have been using Samsung for last 5 years.
Andres is a very aware to social changes, she doesn’t prefer
spending a huge amount in a products and she purchases a product
according to the value to price proportion.

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consideration. The unique selling proposition of the products is that the product is priced at a
lower range by giving the features of high-end devices. Customer from different income level
can afford the mid range devices of Samsung. The high-end devices are mostly for the people
with higher income level.
Positioning statement:
The positioning of Samsung brands are done is such a way that the entire customer
base can afford its product. The brand is durable and are full of high end features that many
brands are not providing in such low costs.
Low quality High Quality
High price
Low price
Samsung
Apple
LG flip phone
Fig. Conceptual Map

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Conclusion:
Samsung is a South Korean multi-national conglomerate company headquartered in
Seoul. Segmenting the market is one of the main marketing tools, which help the manager to
make a make a personalised marketing mix for each group or segments accordingly. Market
can be segmented based on age, sex, occupation, usage, lifestyle and etc. The types of
marketing segmentation are demographic segmentation, behavioural segmentation,
psychographic Segmentation and demographic segmentation. Buyers are divided into two
segments, primary buyer and secondary buyer. Primary buyers are the main customer and the
secondary buyers are the referred customers. The positioning of Samsung brands are done is
such a way that the entire customer base can afford its product. The brand is durable and is
full of high-end features that many brands are not providing in such low costs.

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