Market Segments and the Strategies to Reach Them

In the case study article Under Armor’s Willful Digital Moves, many market segments were identified. A market segment is a group of customers with similar needs and wants, and the first one identified was the male athletic demographic. The strategy was simple, the brand would be created for “tough” men, offering innovative, technical apparel that hadn’t been seen before. The breathable, wicking fabric that replaced the traditional cotton in athletic-wear launched Under Armor to the household name it is today. Once securing a successful spot in the industry, the company decided to target another market segment- the women’s athletic demographic.

Under Armor began by observing- one of their biggest competitors, Adidas, implemented a market segmentation strategy called the “Unite All Originals” campaign. This campaign targeted women through social media via popular original artists. The strategy ultimately failed, and it reminded me of a few strategies I’ve tried in my field of work when I’ve had too tight a tight deadline and a creative block. It almost feels like a campaign thrown together that you hope to the highest powers will work, but you know deep down doesn’t have enough power behind it for a chance to garner any attention. Building off of their competitors failure, Under Armor dug their heels in and launched the “I Will What I Want” campaign, which ended up being their most successful market segmentation strategy. The overall goal of the campaign was to celebrate women with not only physical but mental strength and the ability to tune out external pressures and instead focus inward to find peace.

I think four key points to remember when implementing segmentation strategies are:

1. Research your target market segment. Knowing as much as possible about your demographic is going to be key to marketing to them. Generation X and Baby Boomers have completely different preferences when it comes to advertisements, so one advertisement for both market segments wouldn’t be effective. Researching everything- down to the way they prefer to be addressed, the way they prefer to be contacted, the visuals that appear to them the most, the time of day their most likely to interact with/ see advertisements, etc.- will help you fully understand the wants and needs of the customer and how your product or service can meet those needs.

2. Study marketing platforms such as different forms of social media, billboard advertisements, television commercials, etc. to find which one is most frequently affective on your target market segment. As previously mentioned, different generations and segments prefer to be marketed to differently, so now you must research the platforms themselves. Marketing on Instagram isn’t just as easy as posting a picture- there are many factors to consider such as peak interaction times, popular hashtags, carousel pictures vs a still picture, follower count, etc. Plus, if your target market was elderly men, your Instagram campaign would likely be a massive failure. Each medium of marketing can and should be researched deeply before using to ensure that it will reach the target segment and reach them most effectively.

3. Analyze the competition’s strategies. Like Under Armor sitting back and watching Adidas fail, it’s important to watch the other players in your field to see what has and hasn’t been working for them. It eliminates the need for you to have to run trial and error campaigns because they’ve already been done- you just have to find the results. Take components that work, and leave the ones that don’t.

4. Lastly, trust your intuition. I think to some extent every person meant to be in marketing gets a sort of “gut feeling” when it comes to strategies and campaigns. I’ve heard other people in marketing speak on it before- and it’s kind of hard to put into words- but you generally can feel when the work you’ve produced is going to perform well or not. If you’ve done ample research on your target market segment, the mediums of marketing you plan on using, and competitor’s strategies, then I truly believe the only thing to rely on is you/ your team’s intuition. Does it feel like it will be successful? If the answer is no, even if you can’t figure out why, take it back to the workshop until you feel confident that the work you produced will bring the results you deserve.

A new market segment I’ve noticed online that I believe would be a great option for Under Armor to explore is young adults that don’t like the gym but want to be involved in some type of fitness. There have been an influx of videos of people recording other people in the gym- warding off newcomers rapidly. Others have gotten tired of the same routine of the gym after the pandemic. Under Armor could partner with alternative fitness studios such as self defense studios, pole-dancing studios, dance studios, etc. to reach this new market segment. They would first have to find this segment, which I’ve found on TikTok, and as previously stated do ample research on the target demographic and their preferred marketing platform. Once that research was done, I would see if Nike or Adidas had run any campaigns similar to this or drastically different, adjust accordingly, take the plan to my team, and from our intuition, go from there.

Saghian, M., & Murray, M. (2016). Under Armour’s Willful Digital Moves. Darden Business Publishing Cases, 1–5. doi:10.1108/case.darden.2021.000025