Is There Brand Segmentation?

Abstract

Segmentation has been a central concept in marketing theory and practice for decades. Since F.B. Evans` controversial article "Psychological and objective factors in the prediction of brand choice: Ford versus Chevrolet" (1959) several studies have been conducted in attempt to capture meaningful relationships between brand choice and psychographic, demographic and behavioral variables. The idea that different brands appeal to different profiles of customers is intuitively adopted by practitioners and academics as conventional marketing emphasizes the importance of segmentation, brand differentiation and positioning to marketing success. But does brand preference really discriminates between customers? The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an empirical study of the Bulgarian market for 1) four categories of fast moving consumer goods and 2) three categories of durable products. The main objective of the study is to examine the existence of brand level segmentation of the customers of competing brands.