New Beetle Case

1) One of the most important steps in segmenting the market is determining the segmentation variables. These variables can be categorized in Demographic, Psychographic, and Behavioristic. In segmenting the market for New Beetle, the results of the Arnolds Communication research on the Beetle consumers can be helpful. This research reveals the fact that VW Beetle consumers are young, slightly affluent, more educated and having different lifestyles and they enjoy more active driving style. So in terms of Demographic bases, Age, Gender, Income, Generation, Education, Occupation, and Family Life Cycle variables can be used in segmentation. In terms of Psychographic bases, as the lifestyle is an important characteristics of the Beetle customers, Activities, Interests, Opinions and Attitudes variables can be used to segment the market. In terms of Behavioristic bases, the important variables may be Benefits sought, Brand Loyalty, User Status and Readiness to Buy in order to understand the current behavior segments of the market.
2) The New Beetle target market should be young people (18-34), who are single or married without children, affluent and having different/unique lifestyles. Although the New Beetle attracts the Baby Boomers as it is the heritage of the Type 1 Beetle and they have emotional connection to the car, these types of people do not mostly prefer New Beetle because of their changing preferences to larger cars such as sedans, SUVs and pick-ups. The way of life that they are living right now is not suitable for such a concept car as it was when they were in college and they bought their first car. On the other hand, knowing this strong heritage, young people are much more appropriate segment to the design criteria's (heritage in style and spirit, honest, simple, reliable, original, safe and high performance car) of the New Beetle.
3) According to the data on "http://censtats.census.gov/data/US/01000.pdf", the USA population in 2000 (closest data to the