THE MARKET THING

MARKET SEGMENTATION

1. Vocabulary
Variable Definition

Geographic segmentation Dividing a market into different geographical units such as

nations, states, regions, countries, cities, or neighborhoods.

Age and life-cycle Dividing a market into different age and life-cycle groups
segmentation

Is the process of dividing a market based on gender (male

Gender segmentation and female)

Is the process of dividing markets by income. Some indus-

Income segmentation tries that use income segmentation include travel, enter-
tainment, financial services, etc.

Psychological Is the process of dividing a market into different groups based

segmentation on personality characteristics, lifestyle, or social class.

Behavioral segmentation Is the process of dividing the market by behavior patterns

that could be lifestyle, usage, and benefits.

Is the process of dividing the market into groups according

Occasion segmentation to occasions when buyers purchased item.

Is the process of dividing the market into groups according to

Benefit segmentation the different benefits that consumers seek from the product

2. Let’s read

Food around the World

Regan Royane and Craig Caven and their children, Andrea (5) and Ryan (3), live in California.
They are a typical American family. Regan and Craig both work and they don’t usually have
time to cook, so they like convenience food. The children love hot dogs, cereal and cola.
They eat at fast food restaurants once a week.

The Ukitas live in Tokyo, Japan. Kazuo Ukita lives with his wife, Sayo, and his daughters Mio
(17) and Maya (14). He works in a bookshop. Sayo cooks breakfast before Kazuo leaves for
work at 7:00 a.m. They eat a lot of fish and rice. Sayo cooks all the meals for her family.

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Ramón Costa, his wife Sandra and their children, Lisandra (16) and Favio (6), live in Havana.
Cuba is a tropical country so they eat a lot of fresh fruit – pineapples, watermelons, bananas,
and papayas. Families in Cuba have ration books. These show how much food the family can
buy every month.

Taken from Total English Elementary, Student’s book.

Countable and uncountable

English nouns can be “countable” or “uncountable”:

Countable nouns are things we can count. For example: “book”; we can have one, tow, three
or more books.

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts, etc., that we cannot count or divide into sepa-
rate elements. For example, we cannot count “water”. We can count “bottles of water” or
“liters of water”, but we cannot count “water” itself.

3. Let’s listen

Albert Roberts is an expert in marketing that a company hired to do some research in the
city where they plan to introduce a new product. As the man reports, listen to what he says
there is/there isn’t in that city.

Jane Albert Roberts

- Good morning everyone!

- Thank you for attending this meeting.

- I’ve gathered you all because I want to

introduce Albert Roberts.

- He’s an expert in marketing, and we

have hired him to do some research in
the city where we’re planning to intro-
duce our new product.
- Good morning!

- As Jane said, my name’s Albert Roberts,

and I’m here to tell you about the main
characteristics I observed in the city.

- About the population, I can say there are

about 8 million inhabitants in this city. 60%
of them are women and 40% are men.

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 Jane Albert Roberts

3 million people are between the ages of 60 and

90, 2 million are between 35 and 59, 2 million are
young people between 20 and 34, 500.000 are
teenagers between 13 and 19, and the rest of the
population are little kids aged 0 to 12 years old.
- I also found out that 60% of the elderly are pen-
sioners, 50% of the adults are professional, 20% of
the whole population is poor, 50% have incomes
that permit them to have good life conditions, and
30% of the population in this place is wealthy.
- About the city itself, I found there are 10 malls,
which were built by the same construction com-
pany; their plan is to corner the market.
- Each of the malls has a movie theater but there is
only one 3D movie theater at one of these malls. It
is really cutting edge and has room for 300 people.
- Moreover, the city’s blockbuster of the year is the
big gym in the centre of town. People who exer-
cise need to go to this gym because there are few
parks for them to run.
- The main attraction in the city is the amusement
park. There are roller coasters, live shows, there
is an artificial beach, an outdoor water park, and
there are several nearby resorts.
The people buy lots of convenience food because
they have busy lives, and because there is a conve-
nience store in every corner of the city. However,
when they celebrate important dates, they cook at
home because restaurants are so expensive.
There are also plenty of stores where all of the
urban tribes: emos, punks, rappers and others,
find the clothes and the accessories they feel
identified with.
These are, in general terms, the main things I
observed in the city. We just need to work out
a strategy that permits us to successfully intro-
duce our new product.

Idioms

What is an idiom?

An idiom is a special kind of phrase, where the words together have a meaning that is diffe-
rent from the definitions of the individual words.

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For example: Alive and Kicking

If you say someone or something is alive and kicking, you are emphasizing that it is still active
or still exists, even though a lot of people considered it stopped or disappeared a long time ago.

Example given:

Morgan: I heard Ronnie died last year.

Frank: Ronnie? Dead? I saw him the other day, he’s alive and kicking.

Idioms related to business

Listen to the idioms and then to parts of Albert Roberts’s presentation:

Idiom Definition

If a company dominates an area of business, and leaves no

Corner the market room for competition, you can say it corners the market.

“About the city itself, I found there are 10 malls which were built by the same construction
company; their plan is to corner the market”.

Idiom Definition

This expression refers to the newest, most advanced stage

Cutting edge in the development of something.

“Each of the malls has a movie theater but there is only one 3D movie theater at one of these
malls. It is really cutting edge and has room for 300 people.”

Idiom Definition

Blockbuster Something that is a big success or a huge hit.

“Moreover, the city’s blockbuster of the year is the big gym in the centre of town. People
who exercise need to go to this gym because there are a few parks for them to run.”

Idiom Definition

Blockbuster Something that is a big success or a huge hit.

“Moreover, the city’s blockbuster of the year is the big gym in the centre of town. People
who exercise need to go to this gym because there are a few parks for them to run.”

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 Idiom Definition

Work out When you work out, you plan or develop.

“These are, in general terms, the main things I observed in the city. We just need to work
out a strategy that permits us to introduce our new product successfully.”

4. Let’s speak
For this final activity, we will record our voices. We will explain how we can introduce our
product or service in the market or the city that Albert Roberts described.
First, we should write down what we are going to record. We can use vocabulary such as:
market segmentation variables, idioms, countable and uncountable nouns, and everithing
you want to include.
When we are ready to record, we can proceed to use any recording tool we want; for ins-
tance, if we are working on windows, we can use the sound recorder. We just have to make
the format of the track we send is mp3.
We have to send the track to the expert who is in charge of the course we are registered
in. On the blackboard platform, go to the section that says “Envío de evidencias”. There,
we must follow the steps to attach and send the track we have in our PCs.
This activity should not be long! A couple of key, well – structured sentences will work.
This is a really fun activity, enjoy it!
Bye!

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