Background
Reason
One of the biggest threats in the world is plastic in the water which endangers the precious life of the marine species and is affecting the overall food chain of people ultimately. Hence with a mission of having plastic-free water worldwide, a social enterprise “Plastic Whale” has evolved.
Overview
In order to have plastic-free water around the globe, Plastic whale foundation has started by creating value from the waste of plastic. They first started in the year 2014 with having a single challenge of making a boat with plastic wastes (plasticwhale.com, 2020). It offers a sustainable service to clean the water along with making products from plastic wastes.
Market segmentation
| Segmentation | Variables | Description |
| Demographic | i) Age ii) Gender iii) Occupation | Apart from considering consumers of all age groups, the company should focus specifically on 18 to 35. Both males and females need to be targeted by them for different tasks to perform. Professionals, students or self-employed people should be the main consumer group on whom the company needs to focus more. |
| Behavioral | i) Attitude to products or service ii) Loyalty status | The consumers having an enthusiastic nature and having a consciousness of price and quality will help the company to grow better. They should have a consciousness about environment protection and recycling of plastic waste. |
| Geographic | i) Country ii) Region | The company should focus on the consumers from the Southeastern side of Australia specifically on the Sydney Harbor more than that of other areas. |
| Psychographics | i) Activities ii) Interest | In order to expand its business to the market, the company should focus on the consumers who have the interest to work on something different during their leisure. |
Table 1: Segmentation
(Source: Haider et al. 2017)
Justification
Demographic segmentation
As per the viewpoint of Haider et al. (2017), the segmentation of demography is based on variables such as age, gender, and occupation. The main motive of the organization is to have plastic-free water for which they need to focus on consumers of young age as they are more agile in nature. The people of this age group can collect plastic wastes from an area compared to the people from other age groups. Students and self-employed people can work for the organization on a part-time basis and they will help the organization in many ways.
Behavioral segmentation
As per the opinion of Bharti and Mehta (2018), behavioral segmentation is one of the main segments an organization should focus on its consumers and it divides consumers according to their observed behaviors. They must have consciousness about the various usage of plastic waste so it can help them to influence buying recycled materials (Owens and Kamil, 2020).
Geographic segmentation
According to Alfinito et al. (2019), the segmentation of geography helps to decide the market according to geographic criteria. Since Sydney Harbor has a huge sea beach there are always chances of having more plastic wastes. Additionally, as it is a tourist spot, the organization can attract tourists to purchase recycled materials.
Psychographic segmentation
As per the opinion of Green and Keegan (2019), psychographic segmentation is measured by the study of activities and interests of the consumers. In order to expand the business, the organization should focus on people who have the interest to provide some social welfare and purchase materials with a contribution to the environment.
Market Targeting & Consumer Profile
As per the viewpoint of Yoon and Chung (2018), targeting consumers based on their geographic criteria helps an organization to grow faster. Among the different segmentations, Plastic Whale mainly needs to target consumers based on their geographic segmentation. The organization should definitely think about expanding its market into the South Eastern side of Australia more specifically into the Sydney Harbor. The most important reason for selecting this location is that Sydney harbor consists of a huge beach and chances of having plastic waste are very high compared to other parts of Australia. This will help the organization to supply raw materials for products made of plastics.
The consumers who are located near to that area would be available most of the time and will help them by collecting wastes or by selling the products made of plastic wastes. According to Yin (2018), for better results, an organization needs to target consumers based on their age group. Though Plastic Whale welcomes consumers of all groups of age still they should target consumers belonging to the age group from 18 to 35. The reason behind selecting consumers of this age group is consumers of this age group are more drawn towards these plastic made products and they are more conscious about recycling plastic.
Differentiation and positioning
The 5 bases of differentiation consist of the product, services, personnel, channel, and image differentiation. The product differentiation mainly consists of features, durability, reliability, design, price, and frame of the product. The services differentiation consists of delivery; guarantee, financial arrangement and disposal of the product and the differentiation of personnel contains courtesy, reliability, and responsiveness. In the channel differentiation, the organizations can gain an advantage of competition through the way they design their coverage of channel distribution. As per the opinion of Kumar and Gupta (2018), the image of a company must be expressed in the ways of symbols, media, atmosphere, and events. In this study, the product and image differentiation of Plastic Whale will be discussed.
Product differentiation
The main reason behind the usefulness of the plastic products is they are generally lightweight and different varieties of products can be made and designed with plastic products (Tim and Schwarz, 2020). The price of these products is relatively low and has long usability.
Sustainable service differentiation
The organization has managed to develop its sustainable service policy by providing both eco-friendly product usage and making the environment clean. This is the most efficient competitive focus through which it can gain the attraction of customer for quality service within the Sydney harbor.
Positioning statement
The customers of the age group from 18 to 35 have the opportunity to do something good for society by collecting plastic wastes and making different products made of plastics by working for Plastic Whale. The major competitors of Plastic Whale are Edson and Lewmar and they also collect plastic wastes but they do not recycle those products by making furniture, daily usage products. Hence Plastic Whale is positioned higher than its competitors as they provide a wide variety of products within a lower price and long term usability.
Positioning Map
Figure 1: Positioning map
(Source: Kumar and Gupta, 2018)
Reference list
Alfinito, S., Assumpção, M., Torres, C.V. and Aragão, B.S., 2019. Is geographic segmentation suitable for marketing studies? An investigation applied to Brazil. REMark, 18(2), p.243.
Bharti, V. and Mehta, B.K., 2018. Classification of Online Shoppers: A Behavioural Segmentation Approach. International Journal of Management, IT and Engineering, 8(2), pp.7-17.
Green, M.C. and Keegan, W.J., 2019. Global marketing. Pearson.
Haider, A.A., Zafar, A., Khalid, A., Majid, A., Abdullah, M.A. and Sarwar, M.B., 2017. Marketing Management. Head, B, p.22.
Kumar, P. and Gupta, S., 2018. Branding and Positioning of Print vs. Online News Readership, Differentiation and its Effects.
Yin, Y., 2018. Behavioral targeting: early student profile identification for efficient student recruitment (Master’s thesis, University of Twente).
Yoon, B. and Chung, Y., 2018. Consumer attitude and visit intention toward food-trucks: Targeting Millennials. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 21(2), pp.187-199.
plasticwhale.com2020 Plastic Whale 2019 Available at: https://plasticwhale.com/ [Accessed on 10 March, 2020]
Owens, K.A. and Kamil, P.I., 2020. Adapting Coastal Collection Methods for River Assessment to Increase Data on Global Plastic Pollution: Examples From India and Indonesia. Frontiers in Environmental Science.
Tim, V.E. and Schwarz, A., 2020. Plastic debris in rivers. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, 7(1).
Plastic Whale Research Report by Subject Academy
Dreaming of submitting the kind of assignments that could woo and impress your teacher? 🤩 But don’t know how? Stop calling it a dream, its time to call it a plan.
Get your assignments done by Subject Academy.
Call or WhatsApp us at +61390169018 to know more.
