Question

Gayle and Mark work on the marketing team of Conde Nast, a leading magazine publisher of many well-known magazines such as Vogue, Wired, The New Yorker, to name a few. Gayle and Mark have been keeping a very close eye on trends in magazine readership, and have been successful in changing their magazines in terms of content and delivery. For instance, they recently developed iPad compatible versions of almost all magazines, and have found success with digital subscriptions of many of their magazines. Despite these successes, their marketing budgets remain tight, and they're at the point that they have to decide which publications to promote, versus which ones to spend less money on. On this, Gayle and Mark disagree. Gayle believes that they should heavily promote and invest in their publications targeted at young segments such as the Millenials in order to target this large and educated demographic segment. Mark disagrees. He believes that Millenials are tough customers, and that it will be a waste to target them. They've hired you, a recently minted marketing consultant, to resolve their disagreement and provide strategic insight. Given what you've learned in our discussions on Demograaphics, what advice would you give them?

Unequivocally support Mark - after all, Baby Boomers are the largest demographic segment of consumers, and they are used to reading magazines.

Options b and c.

Suggest that both Gayle and Mark are wrong to focus only on age as a demographic segmentation variable. Instead, ask them to develop a strategy after considering psychographics and lifestyles.

Unequivocally support Gayle - after all, Millenials are the largest demographic segment of consumers, and they will read digital versions of magazines.

Options a and b.

Answer 1

Answer: b) suggest that both Gayle and Mark are wrong to focus only on age as a demographic segmentation variable. Instead, ask them to develop a strategy after considering psychographics and lifestyles.

Reason: The partners should consider a broader view to make a better decision to ensure sales and productivity. Many factors, such as recent trends, psychological perception of customers, demographic factors, and standard of living as it will help the company gain more insights into the consumers' demand pattern to make sales decisions accordingly.