Event Recap: (Part 1) VALS Presentation "Getting the Right Message to the Right People"

Hey GGUAMA members! In case you missed the VALS presentation by David Sleeth-Keppler, here are some highlights:

Issues marketing professionals face:

·      Businesses have great products to offer, but marketers are sending the message to the wrong consumer.

·      The turnover rate in brand management is very high (brands change their images all the time).

·      How can marketers craft the right message and get it to the right people?

Why do these issues persist?

·      There’s a lot of diversity among people, and it’s hard for marketers to keep track of people’s activities and preferences.

o   Marketing guru provides insights to different types of consumers.

·      Brands have different personalities:

o   Brands that are energetic and exciting make it in American market, and marketing gurus encourage their clients to create exciting brands.

o   However, statistics show that only 12.7% of consumers want excitement, and 22% want energetic brands. Thanks a lot, gurus!

·      There’s a disconnect between facts about what consumers want and the fiction that marketers believe. This is why marketers need good data in order to make good decisions.

Solution: develop specific markets for their products/services.

This is where segmentation comes in.

Segmentation: smaller chunks of the market, easier to control, more manageable. There are different types of segmentation, which will be covered later in the presentation.

·      These segments are identified by similarities shared by consumers within the market. Consumers in a particular group maintain similar interests and behave more like each other in comparison to the rest of the country.

·      Key to segmentation: know what you’re selling.

o   Marketers must analyze product characteristics and find consumers for whom the product is a good fit

o   By knowing your product (value proposition, what’s good about your product) you can predict which group of consumers may be interested in the product.

o   Marketers can develop the right message to convey about the product by knowing the right information to talk about.

o   Marketers cannot assume that the product has a universal appeal.

Developing the markets (segmentation):

·      Three steps:

1.     Identify the benefits derived from a product and purchasing barriers, which vary from person to person.

2.     Target identification must be based on understanding your audience.

3.     Advertising the product to the desired audience.

*ISSUE: Marketers may follow step 1 and 2, but the message does NOT get to the right people (step 3) because there is a disconnect between businesses (who understand their products) and ad agencies (who execute creatively based on a loose focus on what the product is all about)

·      Useful/effective segmentation should:

o   Describe groups of people

o   Estimate the sizes of these segments

o   Cover population of interest (your product hasn’t reached everyone you want to cover)