Harvey Beck is co-chief executive officer of ICOM Information & Communications, a target marketing company specializing in the acquisition and application of recent consumer data to help clients improve their marketing effectiveness. He can be reached by phone at (416) 297-7887 or by e-mail at hbeck@i-com.com

Two important, and seemingly opposed, trends are defining consumer goods marketing in the ’90s. These are the fragmentation of markets and the consolidation of brands.

On the one hand, diverging consumer needs are leading to fragmentation of consumer markets, which in turn is resulting in brand and benefit fragmentation.

Take Crest, for example. In the beginning, one tube of toothpaste served all. The name of the game was ‘cavity prevention.’

More recently, consumers started to demand a range of new benefits from brushing their teeth: smokers wanted a whitening formula to reduce nicotine stains, older people wanted to prevent gingivitis, kids wanted sweeter flavors, some people preferred the clean feeling of baking soda, others were concerned with tartar build-up.

And before you knew it, there were 48 skus of Crest competing for attention.

Conflicting with this need for brands to subdivide is that companies, in their desire for efficiencies, are creating bigger cross-category brands.

These mega brands are positioned under an umbrella proposition that allows them to encompass a wide collection of benefits. The name of the game now is the ‘end end benefit’ – a core category proposition or sometimes even a feeling that is tied to the company or brand name.

Probably the most glamorous example of a mega brand is ‘Just do it’ Nike. With a dominant share of feet, Nike is now leveraging its shoe success by venturing into a broad range of sporting equipment, clothing and even sports events.

Similarly, in the packaged goods world, Ivory has been transferring its image for purity and mildness from soap to shampoo and dishwashing liquid. And ibm’s ‘Solutions for a small planet’ is another illustration of how a company can become a mega brand.

There is a snag, however. Consolidation and fragmentation do not work together harmoniously. For while marketers need consolidated mega brands to build critical mass, mass advertising homogenizes the message for what is essentially a heterogenous story. The umbrella benefit under which a mega brand gets positioned is often not specific enough to convince increasingly skeptical consumers. Consumers want proof – in a way that is relevant to them as individuals.

So how can marketers deal with the opposing trends of fragmentation and consolidation?

In short, they must learn to win at both mass marketing and target marketing.

Winning over consumers requires that they first be aware of your brand, then put it in their `considered set’, next agree to try it, then find they prefer your brand, and finally decide to stick with it.

To help consumers move along this continuum, marketers need to discover the combination of messages and media that best supports the desired changes in behavior.

The best way to build a brand’s visibility and recognition is still general advertising. The message of the brand’s core proposition lends itself well to helping your brand become one of the considered options.

On the media side, some progress has been made targeting general advertising demographically. That is why a lot of mass marketing today is probably more appropriately referred to as ‘somewhat-targeted mass marketing.’ An example might be advertising on a specialty channel instead of a mass-appeal broadcaster.

The most effective and efficient way to communicate specific benefits to distinct target audiences, however, is to move to much more precisely targeted advertising using direct media.

Telesales, direct mail and the Internet offer opportunities to target consumers one-to-one with highly customized messages. If mass targeted general advertising can build brand awareness and consideration, precise target marketing can help build deeper brand appreciation and preference.

This type of target marketing is predicated on increasingly precise consumer segmentation – identifying distinct groups of consumers, each with their own behaviors and needs. Targeted communications cut through the clutter, not because they are loud, but because they are relevant.

Some of the fastest-growing consumer brands have discovered the power of precise target marketing to accelerate growth. Harlequin Enterprises has developed – and now dominates – the global market for romance novels by carefully segmenting reader groups and using advanced database techniques to target specific offerings to readers of Silhouette Desire, Intimate Moments, and Harlequin Romance.

Another case in point is a well-known dishwashing liquid launched under the umbrella platform of ‘superior quality that you can count on.’ One of this brand’s breakthroughs came when research into the motivations of different user groups revealed that it would benefit from complementing its general marketing with user-group-specific advertising.

The resulting targeted communication programs built the brand’s share among targeted user groups significantly ahead of traditional-style creative alone.

Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Unilever, once said: ‘Half of my advertising is wasted. I just wish I knew which half.’ – his point being that not all consumers are interested in your brand, many may have no occasion to use it, or will use it no matter what you say to them.

That said, how do you get better value for your marketing dollar? By making sure you have the right coverage at both ends of the targeting continuum – a great general positioning communicated by the most effective mass media and your most persuasive and relevant messages precisely targeted to key consumer segments.

Marketers of mega brands that ignore the trend toward fragmentation will lose the battle for relevance to niche products or other big brands that practise precise target marketing. It is hard to fight these competitors cost-effectively through mass techniques.

On the other hand, marketers of mega brands who learn to understand and act on consumer segmentation can thrive in a world where consumers are no longer created equal. By defining relevant benefits and using new target marketing techniques, they’ll find ways to cut through the clutter.