Scenario: You are the global marketing vice president at Dyson. You have been asked to attend a meeting with James Dyson, the company's founder. Dyson's CEO and the head of Dyson's New Product Innovation department will also be in attendance. "Thanks for meeting with me today," James says. "Market intelligence has shown that our major competitors-Hoover, Shark, and Bissell-are all developing new cordless vacuum cleaners with a longer battery life than what's currently available." James Dyson looks to you: "I need you to participate in a new cross-functional product development team that will research the feasibility of creating a cordless vacuum cleaner that works for one hour on a single charge. We also need to know if there's even a market for this type of vacuum," he says. "We envision that this new vacuum will be used primarily in the home, but keep in mind, we want to be able to adapt it easily and cheaply for light commercial use. One way of doing this is by using swappable battery packs." "Have an actionable marketing plan ready for me in three weeks," James says. You know that to give the CEO the most thorough report, you'll need to conduct an internal analysis of Dyson and an environmental scan for the new vacuum cleaner. You'll need to have a detailed plan for identifying marketing opportunities, and you'll need to research the home and commercial vacuum cleaner industry, market trends, and Dyson's major global competition. The first step in developing a marketing strategy involves segmenting, targeting and positioning (STP). Segmentation is breaking down the market into homogenous groups; targeting is selecting the consumer groups on which you will focus your marketing efforts. The appropriate segmentation variable is dependent on the needs and wants of the consumers. These decisions require extensive marketing research on the consumers and are directly tied to your value proposition. Once the segmentation variables are determined and the target markets selected, you need to develop a positioning strategy. Positioning refers to the image of the product that you want the consumer to have relative to the competition. How should one describe the market research you would conduct to analyze and segment the market for the new vacuum cleaner.
Explain how you would select a target market or markets for the product offering. These can be domestic markets, international markets, or both.
In addition, explain the process of positioning the new Dyson vacuum cleaner relative to the competition.