ABSTRACT
How to develop a psychographic segmentation scheme? It is easier to buy one already developed, but let us assume that we want one that is proprietary, or at least specific to our product or service. Morgan and Levy (2002, p. 28) unequivocally state that the
more specifically a segmentation study is focused on a [specific] product, service, or issue, the more actionable will be the segmentation strategy that results. Studies based on cohort analysis, general personality traits, lifestage, values, general psychographics, and lifestyle are inherently weak because they do not tie mature consumer segments to anything specific.
I completely disagree. A working lifetime of reading journal articles by academics doing segmentation study after segmentation study on specific products leaves me with the feeling that there has to be more; it is probably this overwhelming specificity that often leaves the reader hungry to know more about consumers than which brand of toothpaste will they buy, hoping to find some grand segmentation that will tell us something about consumers as people, not just as buyers of product after product after product. This has led me to prefer the grand approach, VALS or LOV or PRIZM, in an attempt to say something. One could be cynical and say that Morgan and Levy’s statement that general segmentation schemes are worthless is driven by the fact that they collect fees for doing segmentation studies and would prefer to do them, one product/service/client at a time to increase their fee income. Also their repeated attacks on general segmentation schemes do tend me in that direction, for they attack every general scheme on the basis that it is general and thus does not say as much as one based on a specific product. Of course; I have never heard anyone say otherwise. However, one has to weigh practical considerations and say that perhaps after being VALS literate, for instance, one can predict which brand of toothpaste Belongers would be more likely to buy and that this is a good-enough statement for most practitioners.