1. Segmentation
I. Assess the general market (how homogeneous or heterogeneous; patterns of preferences).
A. Individuals: Consumers such as parents purchasing the toys, games or collectables for their personal satisfaction or for specific children to increase the use of motor skills and enhance theireducation.
B. Businesses: Wholesale purchasers including daycare centers, schools, and other commercial businesses who are buying the goods for their customers to use.
C. Retailers: Stores like Toys R Us who want to buy a variety of different brands to sell.
II. Describe the segmentation variables that could most effectively be used to segment the toy/game market.
A. Behavioral segmentation: The usage of the toys and games would differ among the various types of toys from heavy, medium, to light usage. For example, middle aged to older consumers who only like to collect products like Hot Wheels and Barbie would have a light product usage and girls who are anxious about the next new Barbie product probably have a high product usage. There are also many consumer benefits in the toy and game market. These benefits include educational benefits, children’s development with imagination and originality, and personalhappiness.
B. Geographic: There are consumers all over the world who purchase and play with toys. These locations are in urban and metropolitan areas that tend to be highly populated.
C. Demographic: These toys reach a wide range of upper and middle class consumers from the single stage of the life cycle, parents with children, and retired or senior stage of life. Males and females who are infants, children and adults are the main consumers for this market.
D. Psychographics: Individuals who arefamilyoriented and concerned about safety. They are very active and hands-on. Read about Mattel’s Business Strategies
III. Identify and profile the various market segments in the toy/game industry.
A. Family centered married adults with children who want to help in the development and education of their kids. They are probably middle class and together make an income of over $100, 000. There is high involvement with their children’s school and extra curricular activities.
B. Commercial businesses such as schools and day care centers who are buying the toys for their customers. They are well educated with college degrees and provide mostly to children at the infant age to about age 12 and take safety precautions seriously.
C. Retail businesses like Toys ‘ R’ Us who want to buy a variety of brands from a trusted and well-known wholesaler.
D. Adults who take an interest in collectables like Hot Wheels or who like to play games such as Scrabble. They are outgoing, original and status cautious.
2. Targeting:
A. One of Mattel’s target markets is little boys and girls ages 8-12. Toys and more interactive games such as Barbie. com, “…the number one doll in the United States and worldwide” (Ferrell and Hartline 2011: 466) are aimed at the older children from this group. These products help with competition from other technological advances since kids are able to go online and enhance learning and other developmental skills. B. Mattel also targets their products to parents for their infants and toddlers. This market is well educated with a college degree and very family oriented. Mattel’s main infant brand, Fisher-Price is the brand that is marketed most toward parents and adults. This market is very dependable and trustworthy upon these toys since they are safe, valuable, and educational who market Dora the explorer brands toward adults or parents who have children in suburban areas (Ferrell and Hartline 2011: 458).
3. Positioning:
Mattel has positioned itself as a maker of interactive and friendly-user toys and games by, “ creating the future of play” (Mattel 2011). Since Mattel has trust-based consumers, it is important to strengthen the current position. To maintain trust with their customers, their products need to keep providing benefits.
