Louis Vuitton Luggage - Customer Segments for the Product, Targeting Strategy, and Perceptual Map - Case Study Example

ANALYSIS OF LOUIS VUITTON LUGGAGE (Student Name) (Institution) (Date) The effective marketing of a product requires the creation of a good product image in the minds of the customers. Making a product easily available to the target customers requires the consideration of the four Ps of marketing that include the price, promotion, place and product. For the customers to purchase a product, the quality of the product should be high and conformance to the required regulations is also important. In marketing the prices of the products targeting different sets of consumers should be generally low and not unaffordable. Moreover, the promotion of the product to reach the target consumers should be done via different channels such as the media to reach as many consumers as possible. Effective product marketing also requires proper distribution of the products (Lamb et al, 2010, p. 127). This ensures that the products reach the customers near and far from the company. The Louis Vuitton Company, which has its headquarters in Paris, France, was founded in 1984 by Louis Vuitton. The company is among the best luggage makers in the world with a unique design of beige and brown stripes. Currently, the company is headed by Michael Burke, who is the chairman and the CEO of the company. Globally, the company has 3708 locations with over one hundred thousand employees. Apart from making luggage ant travel bags, the company also deals with other luxury products such as the iconic bags. One of the most valuable product from the Louis Vuitton Company is the luggage collection. The Louis Vuitton Luggage is a collection of designer made travel bags for both men and women ranging in sizes and designs to suite the different requirements of the customers. The Louis Vuitton Luggage comes in different styles such as the rolling luggage which includes PEGASE 55, NEO EOLE 55 and 65, hard sided luggage such as the Cufflinks case, Alzer 60, Alzer 65 and Bisten 80. The other style is the soft sided luggage. The Louis Vuitton luggage also comprises of different sets of colour such as black, purple, brown and orange. The luggage from the company are commonly made from canvas and leather. This paper examines the Louis Vuitton Luggage in the light of consumer decision making, while taking into consideration the different factors that are likely to influence the decisions made by the consumers. Customer Segments for the Product Segmentation refers to the partitioning of a market into different groups with similar characteristics and needs, which are different from those exhibited by the other groups (Shi and the International Conference on Multiple Criteria Decision Making, 2009, p. 614). To carry out an effective segmentation of the market, marketers apply segmentation bases in distinguishing the consumer preferences for the product. For the Louis Vuitton Luggage, one of the segmentation bases that can be applied is the demographic segmentation. Demographic segmentation is commonly used in differentiating the consumers because of the ease in providing measurement than other segmentation bases. Based on demography, one of the segmentation bases that can be applied in the case of Louis Vuitton Luggage is age. Products commonly vary with the age and marketers commonly target the different age groups. Since the Louis Vuitton Company provides fashionable luggage products, one of its target consumers is likely to be the youth. The people targeted by this product should be between ages 18 and 35 years. This is because this group of people are fashion oriented and would like to be in possession of some of the fashionable products such as the luggage collection from the company. Another segmentation base that can be applied by the company in differentiating the consumers as far as demography is concerned, is the social class. The social class is a significant determinant of the purchasing decisions made by the consumers since they come from different social classes (Chan, 2009, p. 123). The social classes of the consumers will determine their ability to pay for the Louis Vuitton Luggage. Apart from the income which determines the social status of a person, other social factors that influence consumer decision making are the education levels and occupation. The measurement of the social class can be determined as a weighted index of the education, income and occupation of the given consumers. Since the prices of the different luggage products are high, they are likely to be affordable to people with high social status. Another segmentation base that can be used for the Louis Vuitton Luggage is the personality traits of the consumers. The personality traits of the consumers has significant effects on the attitudes of the consumers, hence, their decision making. In marketing, the personality traits of the customers are determined using questions, and the response of the customers are later used in segmentation. In some instances, the consumers are open minded and have the urge to try new things while other consumers are rigid and often have presumptions of the new products in the market. This can also provide a basis for segregating the customers. Moreover, green consumption can also be used as a basis for the segmentation of the Louis Vuitton Luggage market (Sommer, 2012, p. 311). With the current environmental issues being experienced around the world, consumers increasingly see the need of sustainable consumption. Consumers are increasingly getting concern with the environmental sustainability of the products they purchase throughout the life cycles way from production to their disposal. For the Luggage, the company can divide ecological consumers using different shades of green such as dark green for the consumers who are willing to pay extra costs for the product to reduce global environmental impacts. The lighter shade of green can be used in representing the customers who are concern with saving money rather than the planet. Targeting Strategy Once the separation of the consumers has been done based on the different segmentation criteria, targeting is the next step in the marketing process. Targeting involves choosing the segments that the company visions as potential customers and pursuing them. Targeting is important for any company because it reduces competition in the markets among the consumers by ensuring that their products differ from other products in the market in terms of promotional activities, styling, pricing, distribution methods and the extent of services provided. One of the marketing strategies applied for the Louis Vuitton Luggage is social media marketing. Social media marketing involves the creation of web pages that are used for advertisement purposes. Moreover, other sites such as Facebook and Whatsapp can also be used in the promotion of the brand (Wang and He, 2014, p. 154). In these sites, the different luggage categories from the company are displayed allowing people from all over the world to view and purchase the stocks online. Since many of the luggage products from Louis Vuitton are targeted to the youth, social media marketing is an important marketing channel because of the large percentages of the youths worldwide using the social media sites. Additionally, the use of the use of the celebrities in promoting the product is an added advantage to the marketing targeted to the youth. In many advertisements involving the Louis Vuitton Luggage on the social media sites as well as the company’s web pages, pictures are taken of celebrities such as the Kardashians with their Louis Vuitton Luggage in different places such as the airports. This marketing strategy is used to capture the affective part of the target consumers who are the youth. Purchasing the products, for instance, that are used by the celebrities gives the youth a sense of commonness with the celebrities whom they admire. This way the youths from all corners of the world are able to purchase these products online or in the stores near them. Aside from social media marketing, another targeting strategy that can be used reaching the consumers for the Louis Vuitton Luggage is the place strategy (Chevalier and Gutsatz, 2012, p. 98). The efficient marketing of any product requires that the product reaches the consumers in different parts of the world. The company has departmental stores in different parts of the world that sell the different luggage such as the soft sided luggage, hard sided luggage and the rolling luggage to the different customers. This helps in reaching the different users within the desired social class in different regions of the world. This way, the Louis Vuitton Luggage is able to reach as many consumers as possible through the location of the departmental stores in the various regions of the world. Moreover, the other targeting strategy that the company uses to reach the targeted consumers is through magazines and newspapers. Louis Vuitton Company does not advertise on television but uses the print media such as the magazines to market its products. This is because of the recognition of the fact that not all consumers are social media friendly, thus, they can find information from these sources. Additionally, many women are addicted to fashion magazines; thus the company uses such magazines in advertising the Louis Vuitton Luggage to them. Although the company has different ways that it uses to reach the customers, there is the increased need for continuous improvement to help the company and its products to remain relevant in the competitive market place. One of the considerations that the company should make in improving the targeting strategy is television advertisements. The number of people watching television in different parts of the world at any particular time is take, and the company can take advantage of this promotion medium to increase awareness of its products among the consumers. Another way of improving the targeting strategies of the company is through improving the customer communication. Poor customer communication has been mentioned as a major cause of revenue loss in many companies, hence the need for the company to develop ways of communication improvement to enable it to increase its market advantage in the increasingly competitive world. Improvement in the targeting strategies also requires customer relationship management and customer retention (Al-Shammari, 2009, p. 260). Perceptual Map Perceptual mapping refers to the development of a map- like diagram representing the opinions of the customers regarding the competing brands along the different product attributes. Perceptual maps are used by marketers to understand how the consumers view their products in relation to competition and help them in determining ways of changing the opinions of the customers regarding their brands (Campbell, 2015, p. 171, Ruzzier et al., 2013, p. 132). Customer Journey for the Louis Vuitton Luggage Before a customer purchases a product either online or from a retail shop, there are a number of processes that are required for the buying process to be complete. Different customers have different tastes of product, and a number of things are also likely to affect the ability of the customers to purchase the products. For the Louis Vuitton Luggage, consumers are likely to go through the five stage consumer decision making process. The first step involves need recognition where the consumer identifies the need for the luggage. This is then followed by the information searches where the consumers search for the information regarding the product on the internet and in the magazines. The next step is alternative evaluation where the consumer looks at the possible alternatives to the product before purchasing the product (Wolny, 2014, p. 5-7). The buying process of the consumers is, however, affected by both internal and external factors. The internal factors that affect the buying process are; perception, motivation and personality. Motivation for example, explain the existence of a pressing need that requires fulfilment. The personality of an individual, on the other hand, defines the set of characteristics that make an individual and consumers are likely to shy away from the products that do not conform to their personality. The perception of the consumer about a product is also directly linked to their purchasing options (Baines et al., 2010, p. 113). The external factors that affect the buying options of individuals include reference groups and socio cultural factors such as class and culture (Tyagi and Kumar, 2004, p. 47). The social class of a person can be defined as the position of the person in the family, country or region. A person may purchase the Louis Vuitton Luggage not only for its quality but also for the social success that comes with owning it. Other factors that may affect the purchasing options of individuals are the reference groups such as family and the cultural norms which may prohibit a given set of people from using some products. Conclusions Considering the above discussion, it is apparent that proper marketing requires a good knowledge of the customer preferences as well as their personalities to determine their capability of purchasing a product. Companies are encouraged to perform segmentation of the market to limit their focus on the segments that are likely to bring more income rather than focusing on the market holistically. The Louis Vuitton Luggage should have vigorous market campaigns to be known to many people, and the prices should be reduced to make it more affordable even to the upper middle class. References Al-Shammari, M. (2009). Customer knowledge management: people, processes, and technology. Hershey, PA, Information Science Reference, p. 260. Baines, P., Fill, C., & Page, K. (2010). Marketing. 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