Market segmentation 253
bachelor stage, to newly married, married with
children, empty nester who is married with
children who no longer live in the parental
home, and finally to the solitary survivor stage.
Buying needs, values and behaviour clearly
differ for the various stages. A recent promo-
tional campaign by Barclays Bank depicted the
life stages through which their customers go,
by picturing a young single man, then a couple
with a family and an older couple whose
children had left home and suggesting that the
Bank has financial service products to suit not
just each stage ‘now’, but each individual as
they progress through these stages of the life
cycle. The Prudential even used a caterpillar to
reflect how we metamorphose through life
stages – promising equally evolutionary finan-
cial products to match each stage. So our drinks
company has an opportunity to use this frame-
work since it has identified one potential
segment composed of those in the early stages
of the life cycle and another in a later one.
Again, message styles would be quite different,
as the above suggests.
A related factor to consider is one that
combines family and age influence, namely the
influence of children within the household. The
‘pester power’ (Carter, 1994) is highly observ-
able. It is possible that the 16- to 17-year-olds for
the drinks company exhibit this, to ‘try’ alcohol
in what might be seen as an acceptable form
within the home. But it is also likely that these
same children will be reacting to peer group
pressure to consume (more) alcohol outside the
home. There will be ethical issues for the drinks
company marketing manager here.
What some marketers do is to target their
advertising at a slightly older age group, so that
the ‘trickle down’ theory operates – younger
kids see the product being used by their elders
and want to follow their lead. By the time it has
trickled down to them, the older ones have
been enticed to the next craze.
The concept of a ‘brand’ is probably just
beginning to be understood by children when
they reach 5 or 6. Parents are targeted with a
‘sensible’ message and kids with a more per-
suasive one. With children of about 7 or 8,
parental influence is less constraining and the
children themselves develop a repertoire of
acceptable brands, TV advertising and observa-
tion of older children being the main influ-
ences. Parents might be motivated to buy their
children those products which help their devel-
opment, but often they are persuaded to buy
things which add to their children’s street
credibility – the ‘right’ brand.
When children are of primary school age it
is often school friends who become more
important product influencers than parents.
Observation and word of mouth are then very
important in developing children’s
preferences.
Many marketers have really taken this on
board, and have started to get into schools with
various sponsorship and ‘educational’ ven-
tures. Schools need the help to ease financial
hardship associated with their budgets, but
some teachers are uncomfortable with this way
of targeting the children’s market.
Any viewing of TV at ‘children’s’ viewing
times will confirm saturation by commercials
aimed at children. Younger children may
merely watch these as entertainment but, as
they grow, the brand and image become impor-
tant and salient in children’s’ minds as a result
of associative learning processes and vicarious
learning (seeing others using the product).
Personalities and cartoon characters are also
heavily used to target children.
As well as child-related consumption, we
are also concerned here with the role of
children in determining more adult purchases.
That is, which car the parents will buy, where to
go on holiday, and so on. Parents have suc-
cumbed to a youth culture and look to their
children for what is ‘hip’ to buy! In one survey
(BBC, 1997) it was found that 72 per cent of
parents admitted to £20 of their weekly spend-
ing being influenced by their children, 22 per
cent of parents thought that up to £50 of weekly
spending to be a result of pester power, and
even 4 per cent thought that up to £100 of their
weekly spending was based on this! This