Segmenting Markets

A market segment is a group of individuals, groups or organizations sharing one or more similar characteristics that cause them to have relatively similar product needs and buying characteristics (Renssen, 2016). Amstel aims for several market segments. The first market segment is age. Heineken, which is the manufacturer of Amstel, aims for people from the age of 18 to 34 (Balbi, 2013). When people turn 18 it becomes legal to drink alcohol, so it is logical that this is the minimum age where Amstel focusses on. The most beer is consumed between 18 and 34, because people are young and most people don’t have children yet or the children are still very young, so they can still drink alcohol. Once the children get older, the parents want to be a good role model and will drink less beer. So the family life cycle is also a market segment.

Another segment is gender. As you can see on television and in advertisements, beer focusses on men because they are the main beer consumers. There will be no beer advertisements in a women magazine, because they are not focusing on women. Also in beer commercials, no matter which brand, you will always see men drinking beer and not women.

Religion is another market segment. Some religions do not allow people to drink alcohol. Islam and some Christian sectors do not allow alcohol, so it would be useless to try and sell them Amstel. Amstel does not specifically focus on non-religious people, but they do focus on the people that are non-religious and religious people that are allowed to consume alcohol.

The region and loyalty are other market segments, which are linked to each other. As you can see on the figure, Amstel is most popular in the northern part of the Netherlands. The 3 provinces that consume the most Amstel are North Holland, Friesland and Drenthe. It is important that these customers stay loyal to the brand Amstel, because they are their main source of income. They will focus on their loyal customers to make sure they won’t switch to other brands.                                                                                                                        

The product positioning refers to the communication from your business to the customers. The 5 P’s are used to make this clear. The first P is product, which is what you are going to sell to your customers. For Amstel the products are the regular Amstel, Amstel Radler, Amstel Bock etc. The second P is price, which focusses on the price of the Product and that of the competitors. Amstel wants to keep their prices low so it is attractive for customers to buy. The third P is Place which focusses on where you sell your products, for example in restaurants and supermarkets. The fourth P is promotion and focusses on the advertisement of the product. The last P is people and focusses on the main target audience of the product. For Amstel this is men between the 18 and 34.

Effective segmentation has several criteria. The first criteria is the homogeneity of segments. This means that the people in the target segment should have similar product and service needs. The second criteria is the heterogeneity between segments, which means that people in different segment should have different wants and needs. Accessibility is the third criteria, so the market segment should be easy to reach, especially with promotion and distribution. Another criteria is  stability, so the segments are around long enough to take action (Renssen, 2016). Measurable is another criteria, and it means that the size of the market segment should be measurable. Substantial is also a criteria, and it means that the market segment should be large enough to get attention from the business. 

The market segments where Amstel aims for are age, life cycle, gender, religion, region and loyalty. The criteria of effective segmentation are met for these segments. The market segment age, life cycle and gender are homogeneous, because the men from the age of 18 to 34 consume the most beer, so they are similar in their needs. Heterogeneous is also met, because the needs of people in for example the market segment age have different wants and needs than people in the market segment religion. Also the segments are accessible through social media and television.

Bibliography

Balbi, F. (2013, January 21). Heineken. Retrieved November 23, 2016, from Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/fbalbi/heineken-16104483

Biernet. (2016, February 16). Aandeel biermerken per provincie. Retrieved November 23, 2016, from Biernet: https://www.biernet.nl/algemeen/weetjes/aandeel-biermerken-per-provincie

Renssen, D. S. (2016). Marketing Env2 Wk2 Ch7 Market Segmentation. Retrieved November 23, 2016, from Blackboard: https://leren.saxion.nl/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_1477773_1&course_id=_30261_1&framesetWrapped=true

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