The Sharp sharia: is segmentation really nonsense?

But, that's just how our brain works. You can compare this process to watching an episode of a detective series you've seen before. You recognize pretty quickly that you've seen it, but not always it immediately springs to mind who the culprit was. And many details you recognize, but are not on the surface.

So it's good to sometimes take a moment to recall Byron Sharp, segmentation, targeting and mass media. To get right to the point: Sharp advocates sophisticated mass marketing.

Byron Sharp's most important discovery is that big brands mostly have a lot of customers. These are also a little more loyal, but they are mostly many (double jeopardy law). By far the largest group of customers buys something in the category only once. And it is especially with that large group of light users where successful brands make the difference. That's why Sharp advocates a penetration strategy.

In doing so, he is essentially saying that it is more important to be an acceptable alternative for a large group than the very best choice for a specific group. But then you have to be easy-to-buy at the moment suprème.

So you have to make sure that as many people as possible (re)know you. With his studies, Sharp shows that it is important to hit as large a group as possible. So don't be too restrictive in formulating your communication target audience. This does give a very different picture of what we are used to calling "waste. Actually, you can no longer speak of that, Byron Sharp might freely translate.

But should you then go old-fashioned mass media (read TV)?

In any case, the advice is to have a media mix that hits as many category buyers as possible at least once. But if you want to reach as many people as possible, what does that mean for the expression? That almost smacks of middle-of-the-road and one-size-fits-all marketing. It is not, certainly not, because the most important thing is to stand out. You don't do that as a gray mouse. But you can take it as a challenge to appeal to as large a group as possible. That is searching for a balance. That requires creativity.

A strong example of a brand that has well understood that this is where the key to success lies is Bever. Their slogan tells the story, "No one is an indoorsman. While Bever was originally the store for the seasoned diehard backpacker, they now literally appeal to the entire market. The reverse actually of segmentation.

Another great example of this was an experience at FrieslandCampina. Research showed that very many Optimel users do not have the profile of the young adult woman who is concerned with her weight. Moreover, Optimel was being used by many people for reasons-and in situations-that Optimel was not "intended" for. The initial reaction was disappointment: we are a gray mouse, we are stuck-in-the-middle. We need to position our brand more sharply. But the second reaction was, wearing the How Brand Grow glasses: we're not stuck-in-the-middle, we're luck-in-the-middle. We are apparently a good option for a very broad audience. The term "mainstream" has taken on a different connotation. Mainstream by definition sounds to many marketers who majored with Kotler like a marketing sin. But actually it is the basis for success, and for more success. You even see a man in the commercials at Optimel now, which was really unthinkable recently. By the way: not that everything is completely different in communication now, because then Optimel would no longer be recognizable, would not consistently build on its memory structures. And that would be a mortal sin in Sharp's eyes.

In short, be careful not to define your communication target group too sharply, don't make your media plan too specific, don't target too much on the one (increasingly narrow) target group for which conversion is so deliciously high. Simply put: you miss a lot of people, while they make the difference in the long run. Sharp thus opposes the general practice of increasing targeting. And he has Procter&Gamble on his side. Chief marketing officer Marc Pritchard says in the Wall Street Journal "we targeted too much, and we went too narrow." Very interesting to talk about this internally. Good input for a discussion. Don't stick too obviously to the strategy you're currently pursuing.

And yes, of course, when we talk about target-the-market you define that market first, of course. So when it comes to sanitary napkins, men are not part of that. So in that sense, women are not a segment, but the market.

What Sharp is not talking about is segmentation based on needs. So segmentation for the purpose of product development. Let's call that internal segmentation for convenience. The extent to which segmentation makes sense in that context is not what Sharp is talking about. And so it is going too far to quote Sharp that segmentation is nonsense. Incidentally, there is quite an interesting tree to be started on that. But to conclude this discussion: yes, about external segmentation for the purpose of being more effective, Sharp is explicitly critical. But also: no, internal segmentation with the goal of an optimal product portfolio can be very useful.

So much for Byron Sharp versus segmentation. You can read more about other misunderstandings in Parts 1 and 3 of Sharp Sharia.

Read more about our approach in our How Brands Grow Whitepaper.