Characterization, segmentation and prioritization of Japanese consumers on behalf of an apparel company (Marketing & Sales)

Background and Challenge

Our Client, a multinational apparel and footwear company, was looking to better understand target consumers as part of an internal initiative to boost the perceptions of its brand, optimize its product portfolio, and ultimately drive greater sales from this consumer segment.  L.E.K.’s detailed market analysis, customer segmentation, and segment prioritization and characterization helped our Client better understand and address female consumers, and consequently grow market share and revenues.

Approach and Recommendations

L.E.K.’s work was divided into three main steps:  The first was to build a foundational understanding of target consumers, how they used and interacted with our Client’s products, their purchase behavior and perceptions of major brands in the market place;  Second, we segmented the universe of consumers based upon shared characteristics, behaviors, preferences, etc., and descried each discrete segment in detail;  Third, we prioritized across these segments based upon opportunity size and ‘fit’ with our Client and identified implications for our Client’s product portfolio and marketing strategy.

A core input to our work was a large-scale consumer survey that stretched across Japan. Analysis of our survey data allowed us to characterize segments and bring each segment to life with a ‘persona’ embodying that segments demographic and psychographic characteristics, as well as its purchase behaviors and perceptions of our Client’s brands and products. We then synthesized our customer segmentation with opportunity sizing analytics to provide our Client with an understanding of which segments represented the best fit and most attractive financial opportunity.

Results

Our work provided a vital input to our Client’s initiative, enabling our Client to better understand its target customers, forge deeper, stronger relationships with these customers, as well as better target and address the most attractive segments within the broader customers in order to drive share and revenue growth.