[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets

Fri Oct 1 11:06:42 CEST 2010

On Friday 01 Oct 2010 20:37:52 Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
+> 2010/10/1 Graham Lauder <yorick_ at openoffice.org>:
+> >> The families: if the kid wants a computer then either Dad buys a new
+> >> one and the kids get the old, or they buy a new one but mom has no
+> >> say, it's either Dad or the kids because the parents don't know
+> >> anything about computers.
+> > 
+> > Nonsense, It's interesting I know quite a few German families here in NZ,
+> > perhaps that's why they migrated, so the wife could make the majority of
+> > the purchasing decisions.  ;)  I'm afraid that your impressions fly in
+> > the face of all the real marketing intelligence. Dad or kids buy the
+> > computers because Mum has been left out of the demographic, typical
+> > given the number of women in the industry, but target that demographic
+> > and Mum becomes decision maker.
+> 
+> I don't know about marketing, I've just been living here for decades
+> and been helping in the computer field for more than 15 years. I hold
+> computer courses entry level, I give advice with computer purchases in
+> families, etc. All my practical experience tells me what I've written
+> here.
+
+OK then let me put it another way, you have taught IT for 15 years.  Probably 
+in the same geographic area.  It's a pretty good guess that you have probably 
+no more than three degrees of separation to maybe 90% of the people you 
+interact with.  90+% of the people that you interact with speak the same 
+native tongue as you, so already your view of the world is extremely limited.
+
+So lets talk hypothetically: If you have taught for 15 years and you had an 
+average class size of say 20. 5 periods a day  that's a hundred faces a day 
+and you saw these people once a week and assuming a 40 week school year.  
+That's 20,000 a year.... hang on not enough, OK you change completely 4 times 
+a year, so that's 80.000 a year... wow that's a lot, over 15 years that's 
+1.2million people you could have hypothetically interacted with each for about 
+ten hours total.  However in marketing terms on a global scale that is a 
+pinprick sample.  Marketers get information for instance, just from rewards 
+programmes that do that sort of sample in many countries in any one hour of 
+any one day across many demographics, ages, income streams, locations and so 
+on and what this tells us is that apart from some minor local differences, 
+people in western democratic, first world countries behave in a very similar 
+fashion.        
+
+> 
+> > Every place is unique, but not as unique as we'd all like to believe, one
+> > thing that marketing tells you.  A good example is Micky Ds, the same
+> > everywhere, with slight local variations.
+> 
+> Nonsense (to use the same language as you do). You can't apply some
+> junkfood chain success story to computers and software.
+
+LOL, in fact you can, at the end of the day it is a consumer item.  It is a 
+luxury good that only a small proportion of the worlds population can afford. 
+In capitalist consumer model societies the market has little variation apart 
+from local fashion. So for instance, like McDs,  Ipods and Iphones are sold 
+the same way world wide and that is matched with other global brands.
+
+> 
+> As I said, I disagree with your points not because I am another
+> marketing guy but because of experience.
+> 
+> wobo
+
+As I pointed out above your experience is in fact limited, that's not a bad 
+thing, it means you can target those variations that the global brands ignore 
+in a local market.  However our need is to be a global brand and so we target 
+demographics that we know exist every where.  So for instance: Parents 
+everywhere, no matter what country or society, want the best for their Kids... 
+simple really. 
+
+Cheers
+GL   
+
+-- 
+Graham Lauder,
+OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ
+http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html
+
+OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant.
+
+INGOTs Assessor Trainer
+(International Grades in Open Technologies)
+www.theingots.org
+