makaylareardon

Last weekend, like many New Yorkers, I watched the NYC marathon and was inspired to take on running Again which then inspired my most recent purchase at Sony. In this blog post I will be discussing Sony and my most recent purchase on my LinkBuds Clip Truly Wireless Open Earbuds. When making this purchase I had three things in mind; price, reliability / good sound quality and functionality. When deciding on where to purchase my headphones I began to think about what drives other consumers decisions / purchases.

Market Segments:

Sony focuses on 3 major segments to reach difference consumer groups; demographic, behavioral and psychographic segmentations. Demographic segmentation can be seen in the wide variety of electronics that Sony sells. For the purpose of this blog I will be focusing on the Sony products geared towards athletes / movement in general. Sony offers different “models” of headphones that cater to different levels of athletes and regular everyday people who have different needs and price points. Behavioral segmentation, similarly to demographic segmentation, can be seen in the different needs of the consumers. Not every consumer of a Sony headphone is a marathon runner, most are for example students who just want reliable headphones with good sound quality for when they are studying. Each consumer values different features offered by Sony, such as wireless, over the ear, in the ear (classic wireless headphone), around the ear (which is the model I just bought), battery life, noise cancellation, price, size, etc. Psychographic segmentations can be seen in the different lifestyles of the consumers. All 3 of these segmentations are very similar but serve their own purpose. As mentioned above some consumers are serious athletes and want to focus more on products that cater to their set of needs, such as battery life and position on/in the ear, while a student might also want to focus on battery life they might prefer a product that has great noise cancellation.

Key Considerations for Market Segmentation:

1. Understanding the Consumers Needs – what is driving consumer’s decision making?
2. Identifying Different Consumer Groups and Evaluating Profitability – which consumer group & segmentation is worth targeting?
3. Finding Marketing That Works for the Company – how will you connect and best reach the desired consumer segmentation?
4. Adapting to Changing Markets & Trends – there is a new trendy brand every year, how will you adapt to change in order to survive?

Exploring New Market Segments:

As A Gen-Zers myself I can safely say that we do not like being put into just one box. We want to be able to train like athletes before work, drown out the noise at work and host our own rave at night all using the same product. I think Sony and other companies need to realize that we want our products to grow and move with us, not the other way around. I think that Sony should focus on a “hybrid” headphone, one that will adapt with the consumer. Especially with the cost of their products being high, consumers are not willing to purchase more than one headphone to use for the different aspects of their lives. I think this is an untapped market and one that will be warmly received by Sony’s current consumers but consumers that have yet to try a Sony product.