Targeting which market and segments you going to address to, is a well defined discipline in marketing. What I still didn’t heard is about the “collateral targets” – just invented the term (I guess!)

For instance, when you see a MacDonald’s restaurant, people within very different ranges of ages and classes (mentioning superficial segmentation) go there to eat. The most divergent segment I saw, is the 60-70’s years old consumer. Taking in account that MacDonald’s targets specifically children and young teenagers, this example is clearly what I mean with “collateral target”: People who don’t identify themselves with the brand and clearly step away from the brand core target, yet feel attracted by its concept and offering, possibly constituting a potential profitable segment.

The key thing here is to assess the value of this collateral segments. Do they make such impact that the brand should adapt itself to new realities, or are these range of consumers attracted because the brand identity goes on a appealing positioning to them (even different from their lifestyle), so that the brand should maintain consistently its current positioning even with this segments at side.

In the case mentioned above, is obvious the most valuable segments are the ones MacDonald’s is addressing to, even though, when considering other million brands, probably there are a bunch which should reconsider “where” they are and “who” they are addressing to.

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