While there are more consumer segments today, they may be more connected by their common behaviors - and therefore more marketable - than ever before. Take Apple's iPhone. Rarely has a product and a Brand so met the needs of so diverse an audience. From grandmothers to hipsters to hedge fund managers, iPhone is the must have connectivity tool and status symbol. iPhone wins not because of highly targeted marketing to each of its many user groups, but because its message of connectedness and utility universally supersedes the disparateness of its many audience segments. iPhone is a kind of new pocket-carryable hearth. Apple succeeds not only in its ability to deliver product, but to fundamentally understand and speak to its role in the lives of not one group, but all people.

What have we learned from Apple's example? That great positioning can make the difference between a geeky gadget for early adopters and the next biggest thing.