Question

NKU Dining Services realized that customer segmentation would help them better serve their students, so it embarked on a program to isolate and understand different market segments. As a foundation for its research efforts, NKU dining started with secondary research from syndicated sources. It accessed the Student Monitor's Lifestyle and Media Survey, which identifies student trends and lifestyles. It also partnered with Claritas, which specializes in geodemographic segmentation. After gaining important insights from this research, they developed and administered questionnaires to thousands of students to learn more about their specific preferences in areas such as portion size, taste, brands, price, and dining atmosphere.
From this combination of primary and secondary research, NKU Dining discovered the following about its student customers.
One of the primary reasons the Sushi spot is popular is that students find it incredibly convenient to grab and go.

• Of 529 surveyed respondents, 352 reported that they dine on campus either multiple times per day.
• While 145 dine twice a week or less. 56 reported never having dined on campus.
• Women are 4x more likely to prefer healthy choices than their male counterparts.
• Those who live on campus prefer hearty meals with full menus, while those who live off campus tend to purchase snacks, drinks, or quick meals.
• 2% of respondents reported that they were too introverted to comfortably eat in the dining areas.
• 4% of respondents wanted NKU Dining to allow them to create their own menus for each meal they would eat on campus.

In addition, Claritas identified six unique segments: Metro Fusion, Main Streamers, Fun Express, Time Liners, Dream Catchers, and Trend Setters. Each segment has its own characteristics that influence consumers' preferences for menu items, specific brands, and meal times. Sodexho relies on this market information to customize the products and dining venues it offers to suit the specific tastes of different segments.

Still using the information from the first question, match the example from the left to the type of segmentation strategy on the right.

To reach each of the six unique segments, NKU Dining is working on developing product offerings that meet the needs of each of these types of market segments.

1. Micromarketing
2. Mass Customization
3. Undifferentiated
4. Differentiated Segmentation Strategy
5. Concentrated Segmentation

If NKU Dining decided to allow every student to create their own menu

1. Micromarketing
2. Mass Customization
3. Undifferentiated
4. Differentiated Segmentation Strategy
5. Concentrated Segmentation

If NKU Dining had found that there was very little difference between student needs (the opposite of what they found) They might choose to build one large cafeteria and serve ONE common dish each day (much like in HS).

1. Micromarketing
2. Mass Customization
3. Undifferentiated
4. Differentiated Segmentation Strategy
5. Concentrated Segmentation

Answer 1

To reach each of the six-unit segments, NKU Dining is working on developing product offerings that meet the needs of each of these types of market segments - d. Differentiated Segmentation Strategy

Explanation - Differentiation Segmentation Strategy is a market segmentation strategy where a firm target different segments of the market, usually two or more than two different segments of customers with different preferences, and offer differentiated products to each such segment based on their preferences. So, in this case, NKU Dining is doing the same. It is trying to develop products that will be offered to all the six-unit segments which will meet the needs of each segment with differentiated products that will serve the preferences of each of these segments.

If NKU Dining decided to allow every student to create their own menu - b. Mass Customization

Explanation - Mass Customization is a segmentation strategy where each customer customizes their product based on their needs and once the firm receives the order it builds the product according to the required customization for each customer. Generally, such firms manufacture their product after getting customized orders from the customers because each customer will want different customizations that will be exclusive of other customers. So in the same way, NKU Dining is following Mass Customization here with allowing every student to create their own menu i.e., customized products or customized dishes for every student.

If NKU Dining had found that there was very little difference between student needs (the opposite of what they found) they might choose to build one large cafeteria and serve ONE common dish each day (much like HS) - c. Undifferentiated

Explanation - Undifferentiated strategy is the kind of market segmentation where the firm builds only one generic product offered to all of its customers. There is no differentiation in the products. Only a single type of product is produced and offered to the customers. When there are little differences between customers' tastes and preferences, firms decide to build only one type of product to serve all of its customers. Therefore, NKU Dining is doing the same in this scenario. Although they found out that the need of every student is different, but if they would have found that the students' needs have little differences, they could have offered only one main dish to serve all the students.

Concentrated Segmentation - It is the kind of segmentation where only a particular group of customers or only one segment of customers are chosen, and the products are designed to meet the needs of this particular group or segment of customers. If NKU Dining was to select the 2% of the students who feel uncomfortable in the dining area, and NKU Dining would have offered a specific area for dining to this particular small group, then we could have said it is following concentration segmentation strategy as it is only focusing on the group with 2% students.

Micromarketing - Micro-segmentation is an advanced type of market segmentation, where the firm concentrates on the behaviour of the customers divided into very small groups and study the behaviour of such customers in order to build their products according to the needs of such customers. Basically it depends on the type of customers and the way they behave. Suppose in this case if NKU Dining was concentrating on the different students based on the fact that they do not have meals in the cafeteria every day, or come once in a week, or have it every day, so different type of behaviours, a few students dine daily, a few students come twice in a week, a few once in a month, likewise, if NKU Dining would have segmented its markets based on this kind of behaviours, we may have called it micro-segmentation.