The auto buyers, citizens of Uzbekistan,demand white. Why? It is one of the major colors on their flag. So it’s a patriotic thing.

As a lifelong marketer, it made me think about a marketing consumer behavior lesson. Ever rent a car from Hertz, National or Avis? After parking it, can you find it? Sometimes it is difficult. A foreigner in a foreign land, in a generic rent a car…good luck. I know finding your own car can be difficult after shopping in a mall on some days, and it would be even worse if all of the cars looked the same.

I also add something to the dash to help me recognize my rental car.

But in the U.S. people will buy different colors or rent cars with a different color because of colors they like, reflect their personality, AND to help find the cars easily.

What if you were looking for their car in a parking lot in Uzbekistan?  All white and the majority are Chevys, built in Uzbekistan. Over there you pay extra for “white”, and I was told it takes about a year to get a car.

What if you saw a bank robbery? At least 85% of the time the getaway vehicle would be “white, Chevrolet.”

This brings up a classic marketing lesson from none other than Henry Ford. In 1909 Henry Ford said, “A customer can have a car painted any color he wants, as long as it’s black.” Classic.

Henry Ford knew he had the “right” product (one of the nine P’s of Marketing).  It would be constructed of the best materials, by the best workers, with the simplest designs at the time for modern engineering.

He will building cars for the majority of customers ( “People” under the 9P’s of Marketing). Segmentation wasn’t the most important marketing strategy. Ford said it would be low in price so that no man or family making a good salary will be unable to afford or own one. (“Price” is another one of the nine P’s of Marketing.)

In the early days of Ford, the car salesman wanted more variety and more models. Ford held to his beliefs. One car, one color. And it worked.

You don’t have to be different to be successful. More styles and colors my spoil a good thing by changing it.

Target markets is a marketing term and target audiences is a media term. Think buyers and consumers of media as a differentiator.

One of the most common ways to segment markets and audiences is by generations. We all know the Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials. Those coming of age now are the “Digital Natives,” aka “Gen Z.”

While the marketing world is worrying about what to call the next generation, they are thrusting themselves onto the scene. Millennials are about 21ish to late 30-something. Digital Natives are right behind.

Generational segmenting is good for marketers because we have learned people within a given generation tend to share many traits and behaviors, making it easy for us to target them with appropriate products and services.

Millennials have dominated conversation in recent years, in large part to both their size as a generation (the largest our country has ever seen) as well their habits, some endearing, some not. We’ve seen the proliferation of take-out, delivery and avocado toast.

Well, the Millennials better look out, because the Digital Natives are making their presence be known! Since the most recent school shooting tragedy in Florida, mainstream news has been covered with images of young people protesting the government’s lack of government response to calls for gun control.

What’s interesting is that this group or segment has largely come to the fore since Donald Trump was elected president, emerging in part at last year’s Women’s March. Now they are the lead story in papers and the evening news.

Millennials have not been politically charged or motivated. In fact, according to Pew Research, less than have voted in the last election (compared with nearly 70% of Baby Boomers voting in the last election).

Digital Natives, named for being the first generation to go from cradle to grave with smart phones, computers and the Internet, will not be bigger than the Millennial generation, but they may be more vocal. They are already more vocal than Gen X has ever been.

The last generation to be this vocal as they came of age: Baby boomers. The 2 Guyz are not always vocal but we surely are observant of change.

What will this mean for consumer behavior and purchase habits? The 2 Guyz don’t know yet, but we will definitely be watching!

In Super Bowl LII TV viewers saw Doritos chips and Avocados From Mexico as two of the advertisers. Makes sense since most football parties have both.

Each advertiser paid $5+ million per spot to advertise in the Super Bowl. And those spots are designed to make watering mouths in the 103 million estimated viewers of this year’s game. As media planners, we would calculate that to be a CPM of about $45. In our classes we teach that that means Doritos and Avocados From Mexico paid about $45 to reach every 1000 viewers.

CNBC has reported that Avocados From Mexico was one of the most talked spots after the Superbowl on social media. Time will tell if that translates into more avocado sales.

What about Doritios? They had the 4th highest rated ad, according to USA Today Ad Meter.

Just how big is Doritos? How much sales do Doritos represent to parent company PepsiCo? Doritos was the top ranked tostada chip brand of the United States with about $1.48 billion, in 2017. That’s a lot of chips.

So here’s an interesting take on some PR announced by PepsiCo. It’s about chips.

This week PepsiCo with its snacks Doritos, Cheetos and Lays chips may be announcing snacks aimed at women. An important characteristic under demographics.

Their research says that women prefer chips that “don’t make too much noise” when eaten or don’t leave their fingers sticky. Is that really an important differential?

As we are writing this post, Doritos chips are making a lot of noise…on the Internet! Seems social media is NOT in support, and think it’s in bad taste…figuratively, that is. The New York Times is watching this closely.

It does bring up the topic of segmentation, though. The 2 Guyz On Marketing teach and present five ways to segment a market. Segmentation is the breaking a market of varied potential purchasers into subgroups of specific purchasers with similar needs, desired product benefits and purchase behaviors. We teach demographics, geographics, psychographics, behavior characteristics and technographics.

Segmentation:

Breaking a market of varied potential purchasers into subgroups of specific purchasers with similar needs, desired product benefits and purchase behaviors.

Demographic Segmentation:

Age, sex, family size, family life cycle, gender, income, occupation, education, religion, race, generation, nationality, social class (is also sometimes put under psychographics.)

Geographic Segmentation:

By region, city, metro size, density, climate; plus by countries and territories.

Psychological Segmentation:

Social class–Lower lowers to Upper uppers. Social class is also under demographics.

Lifestyle— achievers, strivers, and strugglers

Personality— Compulsive, gregarious, authoritarian, and ambitious

Lifestyles/Attitudes/Interests and Opinions

Behavioral Segmentation:

Occasions (regular occasions, special occasions, holidays, vacations). Orange juice for breakfast, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day.

Benefits (quality, service, economy, convenience, speed—Quality, Time, Money)

User status (nonuser, ex-user, potential user, first-time user, regular user)

Usage rate (light, medium, heavy user)

Loyalty status (none, medium, strong, absolute)

Readiness attitude toward product (aware, interest, desire, intending to buy),

Attitude toward product (enthusiastic, positive, indifferent, negative, hostile[1]).

Technographical Segmentation

Another way to segment has been added to marketing’s segmentation, targeting and positioning. It is called “Technographics.” In our research, we have studied what technologies different segments or groups of people use and how they use them. What are your “people” using?

We’ll see what they will be launching in the near future, obviously after huge sales of chips for those parties last weekend.