What market segments were identified and what segmentation strategies were implemented?
At the beginning of Under Armour’s success, their target market was differentiated segmentation because they mainly focused on men’s football gear and the image football players had. They expanded to more apparel options for men but produced very small revenue from the female options they offered. Once Under Armour launched their “I Will What I Want” campaign, the market segment changed to niche segmentation; where a brand attempts to capture a large share of a smaller niche market segment.
Throughout the launch, they used several segmentation strategies. One strategy they used was consumer preference heterogeneity, which gave them great success. Under Armour used a lot of social media and popular icons to boost sales. They created a campaign targeted at women and girls who danced, and may not have had the correct body for dancing. This I feel is a type of consumer preference heterogeneity because they were targeting the sport of dance and captured consumers by selling the fact that anyone can dance. They also captured customers by teaming with Gisele Bundchen, a super model, who marketed for the company that she could be a model and do boxing, no matter what negative comments others made, along with the fact that she was strong enough to ignore those negative comments. Another segmentation strategy used was sales-cost trade-off. After the “I Will What I Want” campaign, women were the new target for Under Armour. UA’s sales increased by 28% in women’s sales because what they were offering was what the consumers preferred.
What do you believe are 4 to 5 key points to remember when implementing segmentation strategies?
I believe the biggest key point to remember when implementing segmentation strategies is the product. Does the product you’re offering meet specific segmented needs? Secondly, I would consider competition and the prices of my products. Do others products compare to mine? Also, important to consider is the fact of expansion. Can your product expand within the market and does it meet several different groups and their needs/wants? Lastly, do you have the means to allow for the product to grow? Do you have access to funds and media for it to grow with the times. Now, like in 2014 when Under Armour launched their campaign, media played a very large role in their success. Technology is only growing, having access to it is vital to expanding a product or segment.
Identify a new market segment that you have noticed recently (during your own shopping experience online, in a commercial ad, or in a secondary resource such as a magazine) that you believe would be a great market to explore.
I didn’t come across this segment while shopping online or in a magazine, I came across it browsing on Facebook and hanging out at my sister’s house. I’m not sure what the segment would be called but I think the market would be interesting to explore. The market I’m talking about is “YouTubers”. You would think that this is average people who use YouTube to listen to music or find a tutorial of how to do something, but it is actually the opposite. “YouTubers” are the people in the videos. To my surprise, the creators of thousands and millions of videos that can be found on YouTube, get paid to make the videos. How are they paid? Can I put a video on YouTube and get paid for it? Although it seems simple, it’s much more than uploading a video and sharing it to your friends and family. When a video is posted, Youtube will place ads at the beginning of their videos and the number of views each video gets is how the “Youtuber” makes revenue. Often times brands will sponsor the creator of the video and the creator must label them as sponsored along with discuss anything they want said about a product or spend a specific amount of time talking about that certain product. Of course if the creators videos are well liked they are often times shared on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the more views they have, the more money is made.
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