Discuss alternative strategies for selecting target markets. Marketers select target markets using three different strategies: undifferentiated targeting, concentrated targeting, and multisegment targeting. An undifferentiated targeting strategy assumes that all members of a market have similar needs that can be met with a single marketing mix. A concentrated targeting strategy focuses all marketing efforts on a single market segment. Multisegment targeting is a strategy that uses two or more marketing mixes to target two or more market segments.
1. Form a team with two or three other students. Create an idea for a new product. Describe the segment (or segments) you are going to target with the product and explain why you chose the targeting strategy you did.
2. Go to the Web sites of JCPenney, www.jcpenney.com, and Target, www. target.com. Compare the presentation of women's fashions at the Web sites. What are the major differences? Which site is more designer focused, and which is more brand focused? Which company's approach do you think will appeal more to the "Holy Grail" target market of 25- to 35-year-old women?