Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

A market segment is a subgroup of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to have similar product needs. MAC Cosmetics have a potential market for the customers, offering affordable prices for all ages, sexes, genders, and socio-economic groups. Their target marketing is the market segment where their product is globally marketed to. The company targets its market, which is their strategic approach to creating a marketing mix for a specific targeted market segment and set of buyers. This leads to the success of the company. The beauty of MAC's target marketing is that it make stheir promotion, pricing, and distribution of their products and services easier and more cost-effective. target marketing provides a focus to all of MAC's marketing activities. MAC Cosmetics knows their target market on the basis of demographic information because it is widely available and it is often related to consumers buying and consumer behavior based on age, gender, income, and ethnic background.

Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products

Every season MAC Cosmetics introduces a new collection of products. These ideas come form many sources which include, customer, employees, distributors, competitors, vendors, research and development, and consultants. This coming February, 2013, hip-hop artist Nicki Minaj will be going solo as MAC's Viva Glam girl. She's got a new signature color to add to her repertoire in addition to the MAC AIDS fund she contributed to at the beginning of 2012 with Ricky Martin. Nicki is trading in that pink signature color for a shade of purple that's been popping up on runways this season. New products are important to sustain growth, increase revenues and profits, and replace obsolete items. This new product will sustain growth, increase revenues and profits, and replace obsolete items because Nicki Minaj is a well-known celebrity and an idol to many. Because of this fact, this new lipstick's sales will become equal to her last lipstick's sales. This is because most of her fans bought her last lipstick with MAC and will most likely buy this new one just because it has her name on it. During the developing process, MAC takes everything that includes sale outcomes into consideration.

Ch. 16 - Integrated Marketing Communications

MAC Cosmetics promotes their products in a very unique way and has always been on the cutting edge with their way of promoting their brand image. They use all three types of promotion; they inform, they persuade, and they remind potential buyers through their word-of-mouth strategy. MAC is very aware of their target audience which allows them to know how to focus their promotions. MAC's target market recognizes them as significant and superior, and they have a total competitive advantage in the cosmetics market. However, outside of the United States, there is no media advertisement, so people in other countries often do not know about MAC's products and their advantages. Since this is an existing lack of promotional campaigns, MAC relies on their existing customers to spread the information about their products. They use celebrities and models as representatives of their makeup products. The company is very clever when it comes to knowing how to keep a positive image in public relations. MAC Cosmetics is known for their MAC AIDS fund campaign and their Back to MAC program, where they stand out for being a socially responsible company. They also have fashion parties and launches where they bring the ordinary world and the celebrity world together. This allows the company to benefit great deals for their publicity. The greatest highlight of MAC is their sales promotion which stimulates their immediate increases in demand. The employees at MAC are all well trained. Their sales representatives offer the best personalized customer service. Between MAC and its customers, personal selling is a well paid-for communication where the customer is ultimately satisfied with the product and its reasonable and affordable price. MAC Cosmetics believes in and uses interpersonal communication with their customers, which is direct and a face-to-face communication. The sales representatives in every MAC store are very attentive and direct, which is an advantage and a positive effective way of product selling.