Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

a box of chocolates called Inspirations, which was aimed at the female

market, found that older women did not like the contemporary design

used on a prototype, however younger women like the modern pack-

aging (Ensor and Laing, 1993).

Obviously age and gender variables can be used together to help define a
segment. Therefore we can define segments in terms of 25–35-year-old
females, or 55–65-year-old males. However, this still gives us quite broad
customer groupings that do not take into consideration wider factors that
may affect consumers in these particular age and sex groupings. One way of
attempting to overcome these deficiencies is to look at consumer life cycles.

● Life cycle segmentation: The essence of the family life cycle is that con-
sumers are likely to go through one of the alternative routes in the life
cycle (see Figure 4.5). The classic route would be for a consumer to

Segmentation 59

Middle

aged

divorced

with

children

Middle aged single

without children

Young divorced

without children

Middle aged

divorced without

children

Young

married

without

children

Married

with

children

under 6

Middle

aged

married

with

children

over 6

Middle aged

married

with no

dependant

children

Retired

solitary

survivor

Older

married

retired

Young

divorced

with

children

Middle aged

divorced with

no dependant

children

Young

single with

children

under 6

Middle aged

single with

children over

6

Middle aged

single with

no

dependant

children

Shaded boxes represent

traditional family flow

Young

single

Figure 4.5
A contemporary family life cycle (Source: Adapted from Murphy and Staples, 1979)