Q- ABC& Co., a garment manufacturer wants to enter the Indian market.

Accordingly, it wants to develop new products exclusively for that market.

The managing director of the company wants the products to be based on
the demographic variables. Discuss the demographic variables that the
company should consider, before developing a product, to ensure its
success in the Indian market.

Ans. - As you may know,

a demographic is a group or slice
of the population, such as a
gender, an ethnicity, or people
born in a certain time period.
People can be divided by social
class or income, location, climate (like desert or tropical), language, and a host of
other features that enable people to be classified together as a group. So,
a market demographic is a slice of the population that's likely to buy or use a
product, and thus, these are the people at whom marketing efforts are directed.
Often, this is not as simple as a basic slice of the population, such as just women
or just rich people. Market demographics tend to be rather complex, because no
one buys or uses everything!

India is one of the biggest markets when it comes to lifestyle and fashion industry
around the globe! So, when someone wants to enter the market with something
new via the garment segment, there are “N” number of choices that are
distributed in multiple demographics. ABC & Co should keep the following
Demographic factors in mind before developing a product and entering the Indian
market.
 Age

Age is the most basic variable of them all, albeit the most important
because consumer preferences continually change with age. Almost all
marketing campaigns target age-specific audiences.

This variable can be viewed regarding specific age ranges or life cycle
stages: babies, children, adolescents, adults, middle-age, and seniors. Not
only do age groups and generations differ in their buying habits, but also
in how they respond to advertising. They tend to have distinct ways of
speaking and often spend their time on separate platforms. For example,
millennials may spend most of their time on Instagram and Facebook, while
seniors prefer their email inboxes.

While developing the product ABC & Co. needs to be very clear about age
ranges of its target customers. This will not only enable them in launching
the product with some ease but also getting customer acceptance for their
new product at a rapid rate.
 Gender

Men and women generally have different likes, dislikes, needs, and thought
processes. For instance, few men apply makeup, and most women don’t
wear boxers. Similarly most of the men like sports activities while most of
the women prefer shopping. These are all the key factors to be considered
while creating a campaign.

They need to be aware about whether they wish to target only men or only
women or both.
Also ABC & Co. needs to be careful about not assuming gender
stereotypes, such as considering pink a feminine color and blue a
masculine color. Advertising with gender stereotypes like this could easily
make your brand look sexist and cause you to miss out on or anger your
target audience.
 Income & Occupation

If people can’t afford your product or service, there is no point in targeting

them. After all, you wouldn’t promote a Mercedes or Ferrari to someone
who can’t afford a used vehicle with more than 100,000 miles.
Income targeting lets you measure the buying power of your audience.
When you know the income range of consumers, you can usually find data
to support how people spend money on both the higher and lower end of
the spectrum. Many companies use this data to sell different tiers of the
same product, based on income level. For instance, airlines have three
classes: economy, business class, and first-class.

Occupation targeting is also important since certain resources are aimed

at different industries and job titles. Take this Pardot ebook display ad, for
example:
Job titles are especially necessary with an account-based advertising
campaign. In comparison to traditional demand, account-based marketing is
often described as a flipped funnel approach because it inverts the process.
Rather than targeting individual leads, it targets the account level. The
intent is to reach highly-relevant accounts with the most revenue potential,
so knowing occupation is integral.

By considering this factor, ABC & Co. can easily identify the purchasing
power of its consumers which is another critical factor for deciding
customer demographics.
 Ethnicity & Religion

With the tremendous increase in international business and global

advertising brings an increase in segmentation based on ethnicity, race,
nationality, and religion. These groups have many individual cultures that
come with conflicting interests, preferences, attitudes, and beliefs. This
could impact both their response to marketing and their buying habits.

Consider Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Both companies advertise globally, but

localize their campaigns for each country, too. The messages are entirely
different, based on local customs, religions, nationality, etc.

ABC & Co. needs to investigate how ethnic consumers differ in their various
purchase decision-making patterns. Accordingly they can frame their
advertising strategies based on the prevailing ethics, customs, traditions of
Indian customers.
 Family Structure
Family makeup can be instrumental in segmentation because when a
family’s dynamic changes, its needs and desires often do too. This strongly
affects their buying habits and your sales process.

Single individuals tend to prioritize themselves, while newly married couples

are likely prioritizing each other and their homes. Couples with several
children have different needs than those who just had their first child. Large
families might be more interested in low-cost household products, as
compared to a couple with the same income, but without any children.

This Facebook ad presumably targets individuals who have families with

small children:

ABC &Co. should do a market survey to identify the structure of the existing
families in Indian market and frame their strategies accordingly. This will
help them in understanding the consumption and disposal patterns of a
product by an individual. Also, this will enable them to target the decision
makers in the family.