International Marketing: Elderly Consumer Market Segmentation in China

This essay analyzes the market segment of elderly consumers in China, characterizing it as behavioral and psychographic due to varying tastes and preferences despite similar demographics. It emphasizes the importance of product assortment and culturally relevant marketing for foreign companies targeting this segment. The essay highlights challenges such as cultural differences and changing consumer preferences. It further discusses market adaptation strategies to meet local preferences and create value propositions for older customers, while addressing potential issues like lack of brand awareness among the older Chinese population. The document concludes by emphasizing the need for foreign brands to create brand awareness among the older community of China.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
International marketing
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1INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
Answer: 1
The market segment of elderly consumers in China can be characterized as behavioral
and psychographic. This is due to the reason that in terms of geographic and demographic
segmentation, all the elements are similar other than the income level. It is also identified that the
major differentiating factors between the elderly consumers are the taste and preference patterns.
The different sets of expectations and requirements of the consumers in accordance to their
income level are different among the same demographic segments (Ciribeli and Miquelito 2015).
It is important for the foreign companies to push older segment oriented products in the Chinese
market along with deep product assortment. This is due to the reason that products designed for
the older customer segments will have market opportunities in China in addition of having the
different variants across different price level. This will enable to have further market penetration
in the Chinese market with narrow product line.
In addition, it should also be noted that the marketing activities should also be done in
accordance to the trends of the older consumers of China. This will ensure more recall value for
the brands. One of the major issues to be faced by the foreign companies in reaching put to this
segment is cultural differences (Wang and Chen 2014). This is due to the reason that products for
the older segments of the foreign companies are standardized and they may not get aligned with
the local cultural aspects of China. On the other hand, frequent change in the preference pattern
of the customers will also pose challenge for them.

2INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
Answer: 2
As stated in the given article, it is identified that the growing older consumers in the
Chinese market can only be segmented through their behavioral activities. This is due to the fact
that majority of the older consumers from China are belonging from same age groups with
having same sets of social trend and preference patterns. However, the only major difference
between them is the behavioral factors such as loyalty levels and attitude towards using new
products. Thus, it can be concluded that the identified market segment of China can be termed as
behavior based segment (Mai, Peng and Chen 2013). It should also be noted that there are few
factors that should be noted by the foreign companies in enhancing their appeal to the older
customer segment. One of these factors is market adaptation strategy. This refers to the process
of designing the product strategy according to the local market trend in order to ensure that local
preference pattern of the Chinese older customers being met.
It should also be noted that the foreign companies should design their products in a way
that it will create value proposition for the older customers in some way along with meeting the
larger expectations. However, on the other hand, the global brands will also face the issue of lack
of brand awareness among the older community of China (Bloom et al. 2015). This is due to the
reason that older generation is less updated towards the new trends and thus foreign brands will
face the challenge to make them aware for their products.

3INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
Reference
Bloom, D.E., Chatterji, S., Kowal, P., Lloyd-Sherlock, P., McKee, M., Rechel, B., Rosenberg, L.
and Smith, J.P., 2015. Macroeconomic implications of population ageing and selected policy
responses. The Lancet, 385(9968), pp.649-657.
Ciribeli, J.P. and Miquelito, S., 2015. Market segmentation by psychographic criteria: an essay
on the main psychographic theoretical approaches and its relationship with performance
criteria. Visión de Futuro, 19(1), pp.51-64.
Mai, Y., Peng, X. and Chen, W., 2013. How fast is the population ageing in China?. Asian
Population Studies, 9(2), pp.216-239.
Wang, X.Q. and Chen, P.J., 2014. Population ageing challenges health care in China. The
Lancet, 383(9920), p.870.