11/28/18
Targeting is when you take a simple product that everyone likes and subdivide it in a way so that you can appeal to those who are more nit-picky about what they like. An example would be Cheerios. The cereal started out as a simple ceareal that has no real taste to it and as of now, you can find Cheerios flavored with honey, chocolate, frosting, etc. By creating more flavors of the cereal, the company was able to widen their pool of customers. While widening the customer pool, it also narrows down the demographics of people who like regular Cheerios more versus people who like chocolate Cheerios.
Amazon.com is a great example of marketing based on a person’s likes and dislikes. The website uses the data of what you buy compared to other people that buy it and uses that data for recommendations on products you might like to buy. You may order two books and based off the type of books you order and the people who have also order those books, they are able to make recommendations of books that you may also be interested in.