target market behavior by marie a. watson

SONY SALVEO – TARGET MARKET BEHAVIOR
By: Marie A. Watson



Researching target market behavior is essential to customizing a marketing plan that will captivate our most profitable consumers. Product related behavior helps us determine the benefits that the consumers expect to achieve from our product. It also helps us determine the rate in which consumers will use our product. Our product, the Sony Salveo is a product geared toward the 35 – 55 age group. We need to determine such aspects of these individual’s lives, such as, how they spend their time; what they do in their spare time; who are they spending their extra time with; where do they shop and for what particular product; and what do they like to eat and where. Our product will be successful if we can satisfy our customer’s needs. Once we have gained that customer, we must continuously analyze the customer life cycle to retain them - by all means necessary.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’1 July 27, 2006 release, the average working American spends 7.6 hours per day sleeping, 3.0 hours doing leisure and sports, such as exercise, 9.1 hours working, .9 hours doing household activities, and 3.4 hours per day is spent doing other things such as, eating, drinking, shopping, caring for kids in the household, etc. Of course, while more women are doing the household choirs and helping the kids, more men are engaging in sports activities and exercise programs.

According to the Demand for Message Therapy 2000 Survey, one leisure activity that has really doubled in the past 10 years is message therapy. Message therapy has increased to 18%, double what it was in 1997. The rate of adults ages 35-44 now engaging in message therapy is 25%. The number of adults age 44-54 has increased to 22%2. There is a substantial opportunity to capture the market share of those individuals 35-55 who undergo message therapy. Imagine listening to some soft music on your Sony Salveo while getting a full body message.

Now that we have captured “how they spend their time”, we now focus on “who” do the people in our target market spend their time with. It appears, on average, most individuals in this target market spend the majority of their time at work. Therefore, they would spend most of their time with co-workers. Even consumers over the age of 50 are remaining in the work force or going back into the workforce after retirement. Companies realize that workers over the age of 50 are a great source for a lot of specialization3. Their remaining time is spent with their children (if married), families, and friends.






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Our target market is not afraid of spending. They shop for personal care products and services, reading material, education, tobacco products and smoking supplies, food, alcoholic beverages, housing needs (furniture, equipment...), apparel, transportation, personal insurance and pensions, cash contributions, healthcare, and entertainment. According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report4, consumers age 35-44 have an average yearly income of $72,699. They spend an average of $2272 per year in Healthcare expenses and another $2765 per year in Entertainment expenses. That is approximately 7% of their income before taxes. Consumers age 45-54 have an average yearly income of $75,266 and they spend an average of $2672 per year in Healthcare expenses and another $3034 per year in Entertainment expenses. For this group, this equates to 7.5% of their yearly income. Consumers in these two groups spend an average of $4000 per year on food for home, and another $3100 per year on food away from home.

This brings us to our next category; eating habits. According to the NPD Group5, despite increasing demands on time, 66% of dinners are still prepared at home. Eating dinner meals in restaurants or ordering take-out accounts for only 14%. 4% of the population miss dinner altogether, while 3% has their meals prepared by guest. 13% of the population doesn’t know. Even though 66% are preparing dinners at home, fewer dinners are homemade. Fewer dinners consist of fresh foods and side dishes being served.

So, as you can see, behavior is an essential part of the research and development stage of our product. We want to make sure that we develop a product that closely fits into the lifestyle and budget of our target market in order for our product to be profitable.

Work Citations:

1 Bureau of Labor Statistics. 27 July 2006. American Time Use
Survey. 11 April 2007
<www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm>
2 American Massage Therapy Association. 20 July 2000.
2000 Massage Therapy Consumer Survey Fact
Sheet. 11 April 2007. <http://www.amtamassage.org/infocenter/2000survey.html>
3 Third Age. 2007. Money & Work - Over 50s Now In
Demand. 11 April 2007. <www.thirdage.com/news/articles>
4 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report 998, February 2007, pp-10
5 The NPD Group’s 16th Annual Report on Eating Patterns in America, 2001