Subway Chain Tested International Waters

| According to the text, market segmentation is defined as identifying groups of consumers based on their common needs.Answer

The Subway restaurant chain is marked by its impressive leading global growth. It is the largest restaurant chain in the world. And its foundation and history could be not only a good example for the understanding of business, entrepreneurship and franchising, but also a story which can inspire and awake all of us to new possibilities in our own lives and careers.

Subway like all fast food uses the four basic variables of the marketing mix : Product, Place, Promotion and Price. The use of a marketing mix is an exceptional way of making sure that ‘putting the right product in the right place’ will take place. The marketing mix is an important tool to help understand what the product or service can offer and how to plan for a successful product offering. The marketing mix is most commonly implemented through the 4 P’s of marketing: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place. These have been comprehensively added to and stretched out through additional P’s and even a 4C concept. The 4Ps is an excellent start for Subway to plan for the product or even to assess a current product offering. THE FOUR P’S Product

According to Horner and Swarbrooke (2005: 39), Segmentation may be defined as the process of dividing a whole market into subgroups or segments for marketing management purposes. Market segmentation is the division of the overall market for a service into various categories with common characteristics. In response to different segments, organisations facilitate the available resources to achieve greater efficiency, in order to satisfy specific needs of customers.

Segmentation describes the division of a population into more or less homogenous segments based on their acceptance and buying patterns of products or services. This JB market can be broken down into the following market segments and sub-segments.

Market segmentation: The process of dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who might require separate production or marketing mixes (Wells, Burnett, & Moriarty, 2006).

Market segmentation is a marketing strategy that involves dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers who have common needs and applications

To celebrate National Sandwich Day on Saturday, November 3, the Subway sub sandwich and salad chain announced that it has opened its 38,000th location. This gives the brand a presence in 100 countries, providing approximately 380,000 jobs to Sandwich Artists around the world.

Subway is currently pushing a “fresh start” campaign that promotes the freshness and quality of their menu items. This approach is straightforward, and is portrayed on Twitter with pictures of crisp vegetables, premiums meats, cheeses, and handcrafted bread. Additionally, Subway uses the stories of courageous individuals/animals who have received “fresh starts” on life to entice customers. Unlike Subway, Jimmy John’s (Subways closest competitor) uses an entirely differently approach to gain customers. Jimmy John’s Twitter page is fun and youthful; they use witty memes, pictures, and customer’s tweets to promote their restaurants. Their marketing strategy, though simple, is cheaper and less complex than the professional advertisements used

For Subway Sandwiches, the global leader in franchised subway sandwich shops, the segmentation criterion that affects target market selection varies significantly within each community, city and metropolitan area chosen for expansion. At their most fundamental level, segmentation strategies at Subway are based on a broad base of assumptions with regard to socio-economic and demographic factors including age, income, mix of genders in a given region, ethnic composition of a community, vehicle ownership versus mass transit use, and media habit including social media use. All of these factors are included in the foundational elements of the Subway Sandwich market planning, marketing strategy and store planning. Additional factors that segmentation strategies are often based on are discussed in this analysis.

Subway Sandwich, as presented in the Case Study presented in the Marketing Management MGT 551 class, is an undisputed market leader in a segment that is “firmly established as a nationwide food item for which there is plenty of room in all areas” (University of Phoenix, 2008). However, with a growing competition, changing consumer trends and increased product specialization, Subway’s real strategic marketing challenge is to be able to develop and maintain a differential advantage while sustaining sales growths and profitability.

Despite having more number of locations, Subway is struggling to overtake McDonald's in terms of sales.

Existing distinctive capabilities, such as customization and marketing can be leveraged to acquire target Customers that now go to competitors by offering lower prices and greater menu variety, while keeping customization available. Subway would go about doing this by researching its competitors and what they offer, to inspire their own menu options as well as finding out which promotions could draw more attention to Subway, and less on their competitors.

Market segmentation is an approach used by a company to select their target market and provide data for a marketing plan. “Market segmentation consist of a two-step process; naming broad product markets and segmenting these broad products-markets in order to select target markets and develop suitable marketing mixes” (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2014, p.97). There are 4 categories pertaining to market segmentation; behavioral, geographic, demographic, and behavioral.

Market segmentation was to dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs, charactistics or behaviour who might require separate products or marketing mixes, the company will first