PPMS Project

SEGMENT: Applicability of an Existing Segmentation Technique to TDM Social Marketing Campaigns in the United States

Principal Investigator:

Philip Winters, Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR)

Co-Investigators:

Amy Lester, University of South Florida Center for Urban Transportation Research

Summary:

Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good (International Social Marketing Association, 2013). Social marketing is a useful transportation demand management (TDM) planning approach to promote travel-behavior change, and combines at least seven distinguishing fea... Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good (International Social Marketing Association, 2013). Social marketing is a useful transportation demand management (TDM) planning approach to promote travel-behavior change, and combines at least seven distinguishing features which set it apart from other popular, behaviorchange planning approaches, such as education and mass media campaigns. These seven features include a focus on socially beneficial behavior change; a strong consumer orientation; the use of audience segmentation techniques and the selection of target audiences; the use of marketing’s conceptual framework (marketing mix and exchange theory); the recognition of competition; and continual marketing research. The purpose of this study was to explore a consumer market segmentation technique (SEGMENT) successfully used in Europe for its applicability to social marketing campaigns in the United States. The SEGMENT project in Europe was a three-year project that examined how consumer marketsegmentation techniques can influence travel-behavior choices in favor of more energysustainable modes of travel. The project analyzed over 10,000 responses to comprehensive attitudinal surveys containing over 100 questions to generate eight main attitudinal segments useful for the design of mobility social marketing campaigns; additional analysis produced 18 “golden questions” representing the smallest number of survey questions required to reproduce the eight market segments (Intelligent Energy Europe, 2015). The SEGMENT project in Europe concluded that most of their eight segments can be detected in all locations (27 EU member states); however, the proportion to which each segment is represented in each partner city differs. Additionally, the SEGMENT project analysis identified key dimensions of diversity across attitudinal groups which enabled a core set of attitudinal questions to be identified; from these different dimensions, the golden questions were produced. The eight segments and golden questions identified by the European SEGMENT project cannot be directly transferrable to the United States’ population without further analysis. The research questions for this study included: • Are attitudinal market segments the same in Europe and the United States? • What proportion of each segment is represented in each of three states in the United States? • Are the golden questions used in Europe able to accurately predict segment orientation in the United States? Photo by AlexLinch on iStockphoto.com See More

Project Details

Project Type:	Research
Project Status:	Completed
End Date:	June 30, 2018
UTC Funding:	$97,621

Downloadable Products

None (PUBLICATION)
None (PRESENTATION)
SEGMENT: Applicability of an Existing Segmentation Technique to TDM Social Marketing Campaigns in the United States (FINAL_REPORT)
Market SEGMENT Prediction Tool (FINAL_REPORT)
Project Brief: Applying a European Marketing Strategy to TDM Programs in the U.S. (PROJECT_BRIEF)