A mass market is a market for goods produced on a large scale for a significant number of end consumers. A mass market differs from a niche market in that the former focuses on consumers with a wide variety of backgrounds with no identifiable preferences and expectations in a large market segment.“Niche Market.” Business: The ultimate resource. (2002). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publications:1294. Traditionally, businesses reach out to the mass market with advertising messages through a variety of media including radio, TV, newspapers and the Web.
Definition
Scholars have noted that defining the precise nature of the mass market is problematic.Geoffrey Tweedale, “A Machine on Evert Desk: The Development of the Mass Market in Computers”, in: R.S. Tedlow and G. G. Jones (eds), The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing, Routledge, London, 2014, p. 146 This difficulty arises, at least in part, from scholarly attention being given to the process of mass marketing rather than the mass market, per se. In addition, the concept of a mass market means different things in different contexts and has evolved over time, adding yet another layer of complexity.Melvyn Dubofsky (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor and Economic History, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp 494-498 The Cambridge Business English Dictionary defines a mass market as:Cambridge Business English Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 329
A mass market, also known as undifferentiated market, is a large group of current and/or prospective customers, where individual members share similar needs. The size of a mass market depends on the product category. Mass marketers typically aim at between 50 and 100 percent of the total market potential.”Mass Marketing” in: Paul S. Boyer (ed.), The Oxford Companion to United States History, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 466; also see: Melvyn Dubofsky (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor and Economic History, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp 494-498 For example, the laundry detergent, Tide, reportedly had a 65% in-store market share (in the US) by developing a “good for everybody” product and targeting a broad middle-class market. By the 1980s, Coca-Cola commanded almost 70% share of the US marketAmanda Ciafone, Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation, University of California Press, 2015, p. 397 Mass market products and brands offer lower acceptable quality, are mass-produced, widely distributed and typically rely on mass media to create high levels of market awareness and ultimately market penetration. A premium brand, in contrast, combines elements of luxury and mass market, appealing to a broad market with higher quality products, often designed by high profile designers, with unique or prestige points of differentiation and offered at reasonable prices. Premium brands offer an alternative to luxury goods.P.A. Permatasari and N. Kalbaszka,” Digital Technologies for Communicating Fashion Heritage,” in: De Ascaniis, Silvia, Cantoni, Lorenzo (eds), Handbook on Heritage, Sustainable Tourism and Digital Media, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022, pp 60-61
History
The concept of a ‘mass market’ is relatively modern. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, a market referred to a physical place (i.e., a marketplace). However, by the late 18th century, people could participate in the market without physically attending a marketplace. By the 20th century, the concept could be used to describe a process (mass production/mass marketing), a group of consumers as well as a physical place.Susan Stasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market, Pantheon Books, 1989, p. 125 The process, mass marketing, involves the pursuit of an entire market or a large proportion of the market with a single product and a single marketing program. In mass marketing, there is no market differentiation and no product differentiation. .Geoffrey Paul Lantos, Consumer Behavior in Action: Real-life Applications for Marketing Managers, Routledge, Oxon, 2011, pp 39-40Cambridge Dictionary, [Online: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mass-market]
The term, 'mass market’, emerged in the 19th century and had its origins in social, political and economic transformations occurring across the developed world throughout the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries.Hamish Fraser, The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850–1914, Macmillan International Higher Education, 1982, p. x Population growth combined with rising wages, higher standards of living, concentrated populations, increasing urbanisation, increased social mobility and the rise of a middle-class fuelled a rise in demand for goods and services. To meet this demand, industry was restructured: manufacturers needed new production, distribution and merchandising systems to satisfy the growing demand for affordable goods and services.Hamish Fraser, The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850–1914, Macmillan International Higher Education, 1982, p. 3 As certain historians have noted, the supply-side 'industrial revolution’ was accompanied by a demand-side 'consumer revolution’.Grant McCracken, “Textile History and the Consumer Epidemic: An Anthropological Approach to Popular Consumption”, Material History Bulletin, vol. 31, Spring 1990, p. 60Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1982Bruno Blondé and Ilja Van Damme, “From consumer revolution to mass market”, in: J Stobart and V. Howard (eds), The Routledge Companion to the History of Retailing, 1st edition, Routledge, Oxon, 2018, pp 31-49
By the 17th century, raw materials, manufactured goods and foodstuffs were being transported around the globe. However, for mass market accessibility, effective domestic transportation and communication systems, such as the railways and the telegraph, were essential preconditions. Scholars point to the second half of the 19th century as a forming a 'revolution in distribution’ with innovations in transportation, storage and packaging enabling rapid, efficient movement of goods across vast distances.David W. Gutzke, John Pearce and the Rise of the Mass Food Market in London, 1870-1930, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2019, p. 3 Mass production techniques, facilitated by technological developments, enabled the production of low-cost, standardised products designed to appeal to a broad cross-section of the market.Richard Tedlow, New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America, Heinemann, 1990, UK, pp 4-12 By the 20th century, new distribution systems gradually supplanted the peddlers, hawkers and small, independent retailers that had characterised pre-industrial supply channels.Art Caden, “Retail Innovations in American Economic History: The Rise of Mass-Market Merchandisers”, in: Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History, Routledge, 2013, pp 402-404 As the century progressed, improvements in the supply chain gave rise to a plethora of innovative mass market retailers – from department stores through to franchises and chain stores.Richard Longstretch, “Retail Development and Urban Form in the United States in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century”, in: J. Stobart and V. Howard (eds), The Routledge Companion to the History of Retailing, Chapter 4, 2018 Notable early examples of mass marketers include:
Kodak: George Eastman, who founded Kodak in 1888, revolutionised photography when he developed inexpensive, portable cameras and effectively created a mass market for amateur photographersBernard Weisberger, “George Eastman and the Creation of a Mass Market”, American Heritage, vol 23, no. 6, 1972 To highlight the camera's ease of use, the campaign slogan promised, "You press the button, we do the rest" (1888).Reese V. Jenkins, “Technology and the Market: George Eastman and the Origins of Mass Amateur Photography, Technology and Culture, vol 16., no. 1, 1975, pp 1-19, [Online: https://doi.org/10.2307/3102363]
Ford Motor Company: Henry Ford perfected the moving assembly line in order to produce a high-quality automobile (the model T) priced within the reach of a market of unprecedented size.Melvyn Dubofsky (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor and Economic History, Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 495”Ford and the Assembly Line”, Encyclopædia Britannica, “ [Online: https://www.britannica.com/technology/automotive-industry/Ford-and-the-assembly-line<ref]
Coca-Cola: When Asa Candler purchased the Coca-Cola recipe in 1891, his strategy was to mass market the beverage across the US, by producing a single 6.5-ounce bottle in only one flavour. The company made a concerted effort to appeal to every segment of society, using a national distribution system via food retailers (as opposed to the drugstores used during the formative years).Richard S. Tedlow and Geoffrey G. Jones, The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing, Routledge, Oxon, 2014, pp 21 -25 At its peak, in the late 1980s, Coca-Cola commanded almost 70 percent market share
Developed and emerging markets
The primary aim of mass marketing is to provide standardised products to the largest number of customers at minimum acceptable quality points and at lowest possible prices. To achieve this, companies design no-frills products, employ long production runs and rely on low margins and volume sales in order to maintain low unit costs.Rajagopal, Contemporary Marketing Strategy: Analyzing Consumer Behavior to Drive Managerial Decision Making, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019 pp 189–214
In the mass market, businesses must compete with other high-volume producers. As a consequence, the product with the lowest price, given comparable acceptable quality, will enjoy a market advantage.D. Dufour, G. M. O'Brien and Rupert Best (eds), Cassava Flour and Starch: Progress in Research and Development, CIAT, 1996, p. 114 This tends to lead to a focus on prices which means that companies must pursue cost savings across every aspect of business operations to retain competitive advantage – simplified product design, streamlined supply chains and minimum tolerable service quality.Charles W. L. Hill, Gareth R. Jones, Melissa A. Schilling, Strategic Management: Theory: An Integrated Approach, 2014, 11th ed., Cengage, Stamford, CT, p. 185Amitava Chattopadhyay, Rajeev Batra, Aysegul Ozsomer, The New Emerging Market Multinationals: Four Strategies for Disrupting Markets and Building Brands, Mc-Graw-Hill, 2012, p. 19
In developed nations, marketers create a mass market for goods and services.Richard Tedlow, New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America, Heinemann, 1990, UK, p. 346 For example, a sophisticated new product such as an MP3 player, might firstly target early adopters in upper income groups and subsequently simplify the offer and reduce prices in order to gain acceptance by a larger proportion of the potential market. Mass marketing is becoming less common as an approach. However, it remains a vital part of marketing in developed economies well into the 21st century.Peter Stimpson and Alex Smith, Business Management for the IB Diploma Coursebook, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 361 Mass marketing is often used in commodity markets (e.g., sugar, salt, fruit and vegetables, etc.); very small markets (where segmentation would result in segments too small to be profitable); for products and brands satisfying universal needs (e.g., pens, pencils, newspapers) and in less competitive markets.