Market segmentation by demography, by population, by purchasing power, by usage, by geography – marketers have used all these to plot product targeting.
But segmentation by product features alone?
That is what several well-regarded bloggers were doing when the Sony Vaio P was launched at CES in January.
Was the Sony Vaio P a netbook or a notebook? After all, it was ridiculously small, light and portable. That made it a netbook. But it was expensive, had a high-resolution screen and ran Windows Vista effortlessly. That made it a notebook. No consensus.
Then some among the tech punditry had a brainwave and realised they had been asking the wrong question. So they sparked another round of heated discussion “What makes the netbook a netbook?” Size? Cost? Operating System? 3G connectivity? Optical Drive? Again, no consensus.
The real question that the real buyers in the real world are asking is “Is the Vaio P the machine that *I* want?” They don’t care a battery’s cell if it’s a netbook or a notebook.
If you think you’re a tech pundit, find who those buyers are. Find what makes them collectively tick. Find why they want what they want.
That’s real market segmentation. And real insight.