CASE STUDY

Caselet: Sustainable toothpaste - Keeping your mouth & our environment clean. It may not be what your dentist tells you, but whats clean for your teeth isnt always clean for the environment. A lot of conventional oral care products contain ingredients that can cause potential harm to the planet. Sure, these ingredients like sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and triclosan keep your pearly whites looking shiny and feeling clean; but remember, everything you spit down the drain ends up somewhere else. Those ingredients dont just disappear. They come out the end of a pipe somewhere usually in one of our vital waterways and if your toothpaste's ingredients arent safe for the planet, they can cause significant harm. From its packaging to its ingredients, toothpaste holds more weight than you might realise. Georganics is one of the worlds leading sustainable toothpaste brands. The brand only uses pure, natural and organic ingredients for all of its products. In addition, the packaging of its wide range of products is about much more than just looking good. It is designed to be plastic-free, biodegradable and recyclable making sure that nothing goes to landfill sites. The brands Toothpaste tablets are a clean and refreshing way of brushing your teeth, these naturally foaming toothpaste tablets with cream of tartar are free from synthetic ingredients like sodium fluoride, SLS and glycerin. Organic Peppermint oil gives these tablets a powerful minty flavour. Source: Georganics (2020)

Question:

According to Dibb et al. (2019), segmentation variables or bases are the dimensions or characteristics of individuals, groups or businesses that are used for dividing a total market into segments.

Critique the following segment for Georganics. Analyse whether you think this segment is appropriate or not and justify your reasoning (5 marks) analyse each segmentation variable.

If this is NOT an appropriate segment create a new segment using a combination of segmentation variables and explain why you have chosen that particular segment in detail (5 marks). Please ensure that you provide sufficient detail and justification. (10)

The city slickers. These customers love the hustle and bustle of city life. They are aware of climate issues but are not able to change their behaviour and lifestyle to become more environmentally friendly due to their financial constraints. They are predominantly male and live in urban areas (Joburg, Cape Town and Pretoria). They are middle income earners in blue collar positions. They live hand to mouth and sometimes struggle to make ends meet.