More on Fuzzy Segments
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010In our last publication on this topic we argued that segmentations based on a simultaneous combination of survey generated demographic, behavior and attitudinal data tend to produce a small number of interesting, fun to name but often fuzzy segments. Fuzzy in the sense that while the segments differ with respect to the average value of important segment defining variables, the spread around the averages can be significant.
For example, Segment 1 may include older married couples, who are frequent buyers, and who prefer to shop at retail; as opposed to members of an adjacent segment, Segment 2, who are also, on average, older married couples, also frequent shoppers, but who prefer to shop by mail.
Now, the problem is that included in Segment 1 will be some older singles and some younger married couples, who got into that segment because of their shopping patterns and their channel preferences closely matched those of members of segment 1. This result is what we mean by a fuzzy segment.
So, what’s the problem with fuzzy segments?