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Even though you are likely a marketing type -- and using that brain to read this post -- take a second and put on your consumer hat. How do you feel about being defined as any particular market: Boomer, single mom, soccer Dad? Do you feel misunderstood by the marketing campaigns that cross your path?
In the years I've spent analyzing the good and bad of marketing, one thing holds true: pretty much every market segment is misunderstood and there has, without a doubt, been a study done on it. If you lined up the usual market segment suspects of men/women, Boomer/Gen Y, or mom/single dad, for example, wouldn't all of them do/say/feel the following:
- resent generalization (There is no such thing as reaching "all women everywhere," nor are the Gen Y-ers in your market all alike.)
- feel like they are underrepresented (With marketing to Gen Y all the rage, are marketers really maintaining a balance with Boomers?)
- find ad campaigns irrelevant (Most campaigns are irrelevant to a LOT of people, like it or not.)
Now, this is my cynical stance. I admit.
In an age where the political media finds a scandal-less day boring and the business media seem to feed on polarization or obvious one-hit wonder promotions or ads (which a lot of Sunday's Super Bowl efforts will certainly be considered), it is also only the amazingly "misunderstood" consumers in any shape or size that seem to make the biggest news.
Yet, aren't there also many, many examples of perhaps smaller, less sexy brands with ad campaigns and consumer research that hit the nail on the head? Yes.
Consider the Sunsilk haircare brand (lots of women hated their 2007 blondes vs. brunettes campaign, but the very very specific market they were targeting clearly "gets" the humor). And, what of some of the recent microbrewery efforts (one of my favorites, because of its Team Wonderbike cause, is New Belgium Brewery)? That brewery would have completely misunderstood their customers if they'd only focused on the profile for the obvious, broader beer-drinking segments of Gen X-ers or men. Instead, they dug deeper than the usual consumer profile and get to the heart of the matter - a very specific list of common interests.
What triggered my post today was an Advertising Age article about new research on Boomers (and how misunderstood they are). The game I played in my head was to replace the word "Boomer" in every finding with "women" or "single dads" and so on. Whichever one I picked seemed to work.
Now - this is not to say that such research doesn't have value, by any means. I just wanted to point out that, media coverage aside, marketers may need less help with the broad general statements we've heard many times, and more help dialing in to their very unique customer bases.
Research that shows that the Gen Y or African American consumer is misunderstood, for example, may make news or be worth discussing, but it actually "misunderstands" the finer point. Each of us is responsible for knowing a lot more about our customers.
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Comments
Andrea,
Thank you. It is rediculous to believe that we can create a stereotype representative of a group of people.
I am a Boomer, as are my wife and my many cousins. We may have evolved from the same gene pool, grown up with the same TV shows, listened to similar music and been exposed to the politics of the day. Nevertheless, our shopping wants and needs are as disimilar as they would be if we were unrelated and came from different generations.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 02.07.08
The whole generational thing irritates me. I find that I, as a so-called generation X'er, have much in common with people from a number of different people and generations. I can have a conversation with a Conservative Catholic boomer or a Hippie Boomer and can have significant things in common with each. And what is a hippie? Someone who is a hedonist but gives only lip service to causes? Or is it someone who lives what they say? I have always been a bit confused on that point.
People are people. It is unclear to me that it is useful to divide people by generation because there is so much variation within a generation. Though I guess it is, unfortunately, useful in marketing.
I find that when I talk to people I can click with a person of any generation or not. We can have quite a bit in common, including purchasing interests, or not.
Sure, Generation X, me, might be segmented in certain ways but I don't self identify as a member of Generation X. Curt Cobain was never my spokesman.
I don't know if boomers self-identify as bommers. I hope not. I do not know when or who started this whole generational divide idea but I hope we can get beyond it. To me it is silly, at best.
Segmenting as a marketing tool is not going any where but let's recognize that the segment does not define the person. And, as Andrea, points out, "segments" are often misunderstood.
I have more in common with certain people of any generation based on interests. It seems to be more important than generation or even race. I have more to talk about with a 60 year old who likes to hike and/or talk about ideas than someone who seems just like me on the surface, etc.
Posted by: Neil Anuskiewicz | 02.07.08
Andrea, I understand your point, but I have a different perspective. I think you're really talking about micro-segments and my take on this is that very few companies can afford to do micro-segmenting.
If I'm sitting on a big pile of marketing dollars, I contend that a big part of my job is to pick market segments and then invest dollars to build products, channels and messages to serve those segments.
Yes, there are a few products that can be highly customized (e.g. online financial services solutions), but only a very small number. Segmenting channels to serve microsegments is equally challenging. Even messaging into microsegments can be cost prohibitive.
We have to determine the level of granularity that a marketing leader can afford, and more often than not, it will be a broader market segment, not the microsegments you - as a consumer - would love to see.
In other words, I'd love to do this, and see our clients do more of this. However, I couldn't advise them to move in this direction as in the vast majority of the cases, their ROI will be negative.
Posted by: Glenn Gow | 02.07.08
There's a trap in trying to super-segment your market, and you've just described it very well. We often try to steer our product into a niche when we would do far better promoting benefits apart from narrow preconceptions.
This product isn't "great for stockbrokers", it's great for people who are on the phone a lot, which may be stay-at-home-moms.
Our preconceptions can really get in the way.
Posted by: Stephen Denny | 02.08.08
Andrea,
You make a good point. I frequently have people ask me what the difference is between market segmentation and stereotyping. One of those differences is that stereotyping looks at only one group that a person belongs to while market segmentation, done right, looks at all groups that a person belongs to and the characteristics most shared across all those groups.
To just consider Baby Boomer characteristics is stereotyping, but considering generation, life stage, gender, social class, lifestyle and all other relevant groups for a target market provides detail to better understand the target market, rather than eliminating details by concentrating only on characteristics appropriate for one group.
Posted by: Linda P. Morton | 02.25.08