ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how individual customers aggregate to form market segments, and how these form part of a larger market, the boundaries, of which need to be clearly defined. The notion of boundaries in markets leads to a key strategic process in contemporary marketing referred to as target marketing. The chapter explores the concept of a 'market' and the issue of defining market boundaries. Mickey Mouse is the official mascot of the Walt Disney Company. The survival of this character and it's still central role in the company's public persona illustrates the debt Disney owes to its cartoon business. The UK health and beauty group Boots began trading in 1849, selling herbal remedies from a small shop in Nottingham. Levitt suggested that planners in this industry had defined their market and hence structured their marketing plans as being in the movies market. The chapter begins with two conventional and widely used bases for segmenting consumer markets: geographic and demographic segmentation.
