The Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) has released further details of the market segmentation research from their "Connected Home Roadmap" project. It's intended to provide a framework to support stakeholders and players in this arena as they navigate the complex and shifting dynamics of this emerging market.The following is a list of the seven market segments that they have uncovered, in order of market size. Further information, such as the segment descriptions, from CABA's market study is available within their Winter 2006 issue of iHomes & Buildings magazine.
Home Heroes (20 peercent), Bystanders (18 percent), Critical Adopters (16 percent), Tech 'sters' (15 percent), Achievers (13 percent), Dreamers (11 percent), Mobi-Politans (7 percent).
As I said previously, it doesn't matter if the segmentation groupings or labels differ from other similar studies, but it does matter that definitions evolve beyond the typical age demographic segmentation studies that offer little meaningful or actionable insight. Furthermore, it's my opinion that overly simplistic segmentation models often mis-characterize some older consumers into tech-novice clusters.
Granted, younger consumers in the 18-34 year cluster -- by and large -- are more tech savvy than their generational counterparts, however, detailed persona profiling can uncover exceptions to every rule, including this one.
I encourage marketers interested in this topic to at least read the executive summary of the CABA report, and consider the consequences relative to their own sphere of responsibility. In particular, people working on design considerations for computer, consumer electronics and digital media software products or services will benefit from this insight.