Levi-Strauss Grows Market
Segments
- By Kyle James
A website that I found to be
heavily targeting more than one market segment is Levis.com. This is of course the website for the Levi-Strauss Company.
The first thing you notice when you enter the website is a homepage
that directs you to one of five potential markets. These markets include the U.S.A.,
Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Canada. When you then mouse-over
Latin America for instance, it breaks it down into 10 Latin countries. Let's
say for example you live in Brazil. When you click on 'Brasil',
it takes you to the Levi Strauss Brazil page that is in Portuguese and filled with clothing styles that are
currently popular in Brazil. This is a website that I think
most Brazilians would feel comfortable ordering from as it is in their
native tongue and culture. The models wearing the clothing even appear to be
of Latin descent.
Levi Strauss has taken their
product and message to the world with this website. It is amazing to think that almost anyone in the world can find and
order Levi Strauss products without needing a translator or a currency
exchange system. The organization is playing a very proactive role in gaining new market share by
implementing an Internet Marketing strategy of such a global magnitude.
I feel the website's segmentation strategy is very effective due to the way the site is clearly
categorized and very simple to navigate. Once you enter the site it is easy to find your market segment
destination because the homepage is not cluttered with useless information. The five markets are practically the only words on the screen making
navigation simple. Many sites that are trying to target more than one market segment try very hard to get
as much information on the homepage as possible which makes the end user's
experience a confusing one as they cannot find the information they are
looking for.
I have personal experience with this problem as a designer and webmaster of an online
shopping site dealing with Coupons. I was trying to target men and women on the same site by using promotional
offers that I knew both would be interested in. It was not until I simplified the site navigation structure and
placed the coupon offers at the top of my homepage, did I gain market share
on my competition. I honestly feel that a website is useless if your target market cannot find what they
are looking for. Most users will move on to the next website in hopes of a better experience. Levi Strauss
has done a tremendous job targeting more than one market segment with their
website. It is straight forward, clutter-less and easy to navigate no matter what country you are from!
© 2005, Kyle James
