To boardrooms and sustainability: the changing nature of segmentation

Market segmentation is the process by which customers in markets with some heterogeneity are grouped into smaller homogeneous segments of more ‘similar’ customers. A market segment is a group of individuals, groups or organisations sharing similar characteristics and buying behaviour that cause them to have relatively similar needs and purchasing behaviour. Segmentation is not a new concept: for six decades marketers have, in various guises, sought to break-down a market into sub-groups of users, each sharing common needs, buying behavior and marketing requirements. However, this approach to target market strategy development has been rejuvenated in the past few years. Various reasons account for this upsurge in the usage of segmentation, examination of which forms the focus of this white paper. Ready access to data enables faster creation of a segmentation and the testing of propositions to take to market. ‘Big data’ has made the re-thinking of target market segments and value propositions inevitable, desirable, faster and more flexible. The resulting information has presented companies with more topical and consumer-generated insights than ever before. However, many marketers, analytics directors and leadership teams feel over-whelmed by the sheer quantity and immediacy of such data. Analytical prowess in consultants and inside client organisations has benefited from a stepchange, using new heuristics and faster computing power, more topical data and stronger market insights. The approach to segmentation today is much smarter and has stretched well away from the days of limited data explored only with cluster analysis. The coverage and wealth of the solutions are unimaginable when compared to the practices of a few years ago. Then, typically between only six to ten segments were forced into segmentation solutions, so that an organisation could cater for these macro segments operationally as well as understand them intellectually. Now there is the advent of what is commonly recognised as micro segmentation, where the complexity of business operations and customer management requires highly granular thinking. In support of this development, traditional agency/consultancy roles have transitioned into in-house business teams led by data, campaign and business change planners. The challenge has shifted from developing a granular segmentation solution that describes all customers and prospects, into one of enabling an organisation to react to the granularity of the solution, deploying its resources to permit controlled and consistent one-to-one interaction within segments. So whilst the cost of delivering and maintaining the solution has reduced with technology advances, a new set of systems, costs and skills in channel and execution management is required to deliver on this promise. These new capabilities range from rich feature creative and content management solutions, tailored copy design and deployment tools, through to instant messaging middleware solutions that initiate multi-streams of activity in a variety of analytical engines and operational systems. Companies have recruited analytics and insight teams, often headed by senior personnel, such as an Insight Manager or Analytics Director. Indeed, the situations-vacant adverts for such personnel out-weigh posts for brand and marketing managers. Far more companies possess the in-house expertise necessary to help with segmentation analysis. Some organisations are also seeking to monetise one of the most regularly under-used latent business assets… data. Developing the capability and culture to bring data together from all corners of a business, the open market, commercial sources and business partners, is a step-change, often requiring a Chief Data Officer. This emerging role has also driven the professionalism of data exploration, using more varied and sophisticated statistical techniques. CEOs, CFOs and COOs increasingly are the sponsor of segmentation projects as well as the users of the resulting outputs, rather than CMOs. CEOs because recession has forced re-engineering of value propositions and the need to look after core customers; CFOs because segmentation leads to better and more prudent allocation of resources – especially NPD and marketing – around the most important sub-sets of a market; COOs because they need to better look after key customers and improve their satisfaction in service delivery. More and more it is recognised that with a new segmentation comes organisational realignment and change, so most business functions now have an interest in a segmentation project, not only the marketers. Largely as a result of the digital era and the growth of analytics, directors and company leadership teams are becoming used to receiving more extensive market intelligence and quickly updated customer insight, so leading to faster responses to market changes, customer issues, competitor moves and their own performance. This refreshing of insight and a leadership team’s reaction to this intelligence often result in there being more frequent modification of a target market strategy and segmentation decisions. So many projects set up to consider multi-channel strategy and offerings; digital marketing; customer relationship management; brand strategies; new product and service development; the re-thinking of value propositions, and so forth, now routinely commence with a segmentation piece in order to frame the ongoing work. Most organisations have deployed CRM systems and harnessed associated customer data. CRM first requires clarity in segment priorities. The insights from a CRM system help inform the segmentation agenda and steer how they engage with their important customers or prospects. The growth of CRM and its ensuing data have assisted the ongoing deployment of segmentation. One of the biggest changes for segmentation is the extent to which it is now deployed by practitioners in the public and not-for-profit sectors, who are harnessing what is termed social marketing, in order to develop and to execute more shrewdly their targeting, campaigns and messaging. For Marketing per se, the interest in the marketing toolkit from non-profit organisations, has been big news in recent years. At the very heart of the concept of social marketing is the market segmentation process. The extreme rise in the threat to security from global unrest, terrorism and crime has focused the minds of governments, security chiefs and their advisors. As a result, significant resources, intellectual capability, computing and data management have been brought to bear on the problem. The core of this work is the importance of identifying and profiling threats and so mitigating risk. In practice, much of this security and surveillance work harnesses the tools developed for market segmentation and the profiling of different consumer behaviours. This white paper presents the findings from interviews with leading exponents of segmentation and also the insights from a recent study of marketing practitioners relating to their current imperatives and foci. More extensive views of some of these ‘leading lights’ have been sought and are included here in order to showcase the latest developments and to help explain both the ongoing surge of segmentation and the issues under-pinning its practice. The principal trends and developments are thereby presented and discussed in this paper

Understanding the moderating role of chronotypes for online mobile gaming in-app purchase intention

In the highly dynamic and fast growing online mobile gaming industry, revenue streams are the most important for the game developers. One of the significant ways to generate revenues is to boost the in-app purchases by gamers. Using Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, the present study modelled addiction, loyalty and in-app purchases with chronotypes (a biological disposition) as a moderator. The study posited that loyalty is one of the significant mediators to convert addiction into in-app purchases. For the present study, 345 university students completed a survey, and the data were analyzed via SmartPLS using multigroup analysis. The moderation of chronotypes (a biological disposition) and mediation of loyalty for in-app purchase intention were tested and supported by the results. The study suggested that evening type individuals had a higher tendency to be loyal towards online mobile gaming compared to morning type individuals. Moreover, evening type individuals had higher inclination toward in-app purchase intention compared to morning type individuals. Loyalty functioned as a mediator between addiction and in-app purchase intention. The present study is one of the first to investigate the role of chronotypes as moderator and loyalty as a mediator for online mobile gaming in-app purchase intention utilizing the SOR framework. From a practitioners’ perspective, the present study highlighted a loyal segment of gamers who is more inclined to make in-app purchases. In addition, it highlights a dilemma for gaming operators to balance revenue generation with the well-being of its clientele

Playful by design: free play in a digital world

To change the world, you must first dream. So often, the digital world of children is stated in binaries – on or offline, good or bad actors, opportunity or harm – but the lived reality of children is much more complicated. Where on and off can be seamless and simultaneous, too much of a good thing can be bad, or something meant for one purpose can be hacked for another: sometimes with harmful outcomes, and sometimes joyous. It is with full understanding of this complicated context that Playful by Design® has been researched, developed and written

Re-thinking crisis in the digital economy: a contemporary case study of the phonographic industries in Ireland.

Many commentators and reports popularly place the record industry in an increasing state of crisis since the advent of digital copying and distribution. This thesis addresses how the interplay of technological, economic, legal and policy factors, particularly the copyright strand of intellectual property law, shape the form and extent of the Internet’s disruptive potential in the music industry. It points to significant continuities regarding the music industry in an environment where it is often regarded as experiencing turbulence and change, and in doing so the thesis challenges the form and extent of the crisis the music industry currently claims to be battling. The thesis questions the impact the internet is having on the power or role of major music companies, their revenue streams, their relationships with other actors in the music industry chain and their final consumers. The thesis further questions the extent to which the internet has evolved to realise its disruptive potential on the organisation and structure of the record industry by democratising the channels of distribution. It also serves to illuminate the impact of the internet on the role of more traditional intermediaries, particularly radio, in the circulation and promotion of music in the contemporary era. For its primary research material, the thesis draws on a series of thirty-nine interviews conducted with record industry management and personnel as well as key informants from the fields of music publishing, artist management, music retailing, radio, the music press, related industry bodies and policy fields, and other key commentators

Promotional Culture and Convergence: Markets, Methods, Media

The rapid growth of promotional material through the internet, social media, and entertainment culture has created consumers who are seeking out their own information to guide their purchasing decisions. Promotional Culture and Convergence analyses the environments necessary for creating a culture of collaboration with consumers, and critically engages with key areas of contemporary promotional development, including: promotional culture’s primary industries, including advertising, marketing, PR and branding, and how are they informed by changes in consumer behaviour and market conditions; how industries are adapting in the digital age to attract both audiences and advertising revenue; the evolving dialogues between ‘new consumers’ and producers and promotional industries. Ten contributions from leading theorists on contemporary promotional culture presents an indispensable guide to this creative and dynamic field and include detailed historical analysis, in-depth case studies and global examples of promotion through TV, magazines, newspapers and cinema

The introduction of digital television in the UK: a study of its early audience

This thesis examines the diffusion and adoption of digital television (DTV) in the UK by its first generation audience. It reveals how the spread of this innovation took place, and what were its early users and uses. The main objective is to investigate the processes through which a new medium and its new audience are shaped. The study focuses on Sky digital and its subscribers, covering the first four years of the life of DTV from its launch in October 1998. My analysis draws on empirical data derived from a UK-wide postal survey of Sky digital subscribers, a series of in-depth interviews with Sky digital users, and an analysis of advertising and marketing materials. By revealing a slice of time in British media and audience history, I argue that a number of forces influence the shaping and meaning construction of a new medium. I exemplify these by analysing early DTV in terms of the circuit of culture, showing how these forces contributed to its social and cultural shaping. DTV is a hybrid medium encompassing both old and new services. In discussing how it was promoted, taken up, used and made meaningful in the lives of early users, I address wider issues of how people understand and accept novelties and whether/why they are receptive to change, or resistant to it, staying attached to old habits. In demonstrating that early users focused on the offer of more channels/bigger choice/better picture and did not rush to embrace the new interactive internet-like features of DTV, I discuss how despite the hype presenting DTV as transformative, and despite fast take-up, access to it did not necessarily equate to use of all its services. For early users, DTV was a relatively conservative enhancement of traditional TV. I argue that the introduction of a new medium entails continuity not only in technological development, but also in consumption processes, resulting in the co-existence of 'old' and 'new'. Several theoretical perspectives and methodologies are integrated in the emergent history of this now old medium when it was new. The thesis recounts DTV's biography as manifested in the moments of production and design, representation and, particularly, consumption. The thesis is informed by and adds to theories of diffusion of innovations and of domestication. Its core theoretical contribution is that, in empirically addressing the relationship between new media diffusion and social change by drawing on domestication theory, it advances the theory of diffusion of innovations, expanding its theoretical and methodological scope by examining social and cultural processes within the household and people‟s lives

Audience engagement and monetisation of creative content in digital environments: a creative SME perspective.

Creative SMEs face a number of limitations that can hamper their ability to develop and establish original content in digital environments. These limitations include a lack of resources, struggles for visibility, limits of engagement, audience pressures and free culture. The constant pressures from growing competition and fragmented audiences across digital environments amplify these limitations, which means SMEs can struggle in these highly competitive, information rich platforms. Research sought to explore how creative SMEs may circumvent these limitations to strengthen their positioning in digital environments. Two areas of focus are proposed to address these issues; firstly a study and development of audience engagement, and secondly an analysis of the monetisation options available for digital content and their links to engagement. With a focus on audience engagement the theoretical grounding of this work is based within the engagement literature. Through this work a new Dynamic Shaping of Engagement is developed and used as a foundation of analysis, which informs the development of practical work in this study. Findings present insight into the methods and practices that can help creative SMEs circumvent their limitations and strengthen their positioning within digital environments. However, the findings continue to emphasise the difficulties faced by creative SMEs. These companies are hampered by paradoxes that arise due to their resource limitations that limit their ability to gain finances, develop audiences and produce content. It is shown that those with the ‘key’ to audience attention are the ones best positioned to succeed in these environments, often at the expense of the original content creators themselves. Therefore, visions of a democratic environment, which levels the playing field for SMEs to compete, are diminished and it is argued digital environments may act to amplify the positioning of established media. Therefore, greater support is required to aid these companies, which must look beyond short-term solutions that focus on one-off projects, towards broader, more long-term support. This support can then enhance creative SMEs ability to not only deliver, but also establish and potentially monetise content in digital environments, which in turn can make continued production more sustainable