Question

Define and discuss VALS and compare to Psychographic segmentation. Cite and reference any sources used.

Answer 1

Psychographic Segmentation can be defined as a marketing strategy in which different customers are clubbed together on the basis of to social class, lifestyle, or personality characteristics. Different customers are segmented on the basis of social class by the marketer for the promotion of different types of products such as clothes, cars, leisure products and so on. This is one of the main concepts in the business as with the help of segmentation the organizations can group and subgroup the customers and thus it becomes quite easy for the companies to target the different customers with the help of effective marketing tactics and advertising strategies.

VALS is a kind of Psychographic Segmentation meaning for ‘Values and Lifestyles’. In his kind of segmentation strategy, different customers are divided into the different groups as per the response of the customers to the variety of questions which are targeted to acquire the information such as activities, interests, and opinions of the customers. Therefore, innovators, thinkers, achievers, experiences, believers, strivers, makers, and survivors are the main elements of this kind of segmentation. By having this process, the management can appraise the information collected and thus determine the target market and the strategy used for targeting. The main advantage of this is that the management can have a clear idea about the satisfaction of various needs of customers related to family, work, leisure, health, etc as per the questions being asked.

           

References:

1. Peter, J.P. & Donnelly, J.H (2013). Marketing management, (11th ed.)(pgs.77-79)