MARKET
SEGMENTATION BY VISUAL INSPECTION
by V. Kumar and Roland T. Rust
Advertising and promotional expenditures in the United States
grew from $47.1 billion in 1975 to $ 159.3 billion in 1985 (Bowman,
1986), a 338 percent increase over a decade. Of this increase,
promotional expenditures have grown rapidly, exceeding advertising
expenditures by over $30 billion in 1987. As increasing dollars
are spent on advertising and promotion, advertisers are interested
in knowing whether consumers' purchase decisions are influenced
by these variables, and more importantly, to what extent these
variables differentially affect the consumers. In other words,
do different people in the market react differently to advertising
and/or promotion? If so, are there groups of people who exhibit
similar behavior patterns? This is an example of a market segmentation
problem which is important to advertisers. This article proposes
a visual approach to searching for market segments.
Journal
of Advertising Research (Aug. /Sept. 1989)
Printer Friendly Page
