Segmentation in a Newly Enlarged European Union: Some Insights into Cultural Heterogeneity in Central Europe

We inhabit a global village where mass media attempts to create global homogeneity and in which international marketers are encouraged to think and act with both global and local interests in mind. The collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989 led to rapid changes in many former Eastern Bloc nations that have also impacted on these nations' European neighbours. Recent eastward enlargement of the European Union (EU) in May 2004 created a domestic European market of over 450 million consumers in 25 member states. However, there is evidence to suggest that international marketers may be tempted to treat these newly acceded members as a homogeneous target market segment even though there is a high degree of diversity between these nations. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine the nature of these differences insofar as they impact on the segmentation decisions made by international marketers. It does so by examining the literature on culture, identity, and self-concept and presents empirical results showing the diversity of these concepts within three of the former communist countries that are now full EU members - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.