Is marketing entering a Post-Demographic Era?
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010WARNING: If you are a male advertising or marketing executive over the age of 50 with annual household income above $150k living in or around a major metropolitan city, you will not be interested in this post. You should not bother reading it.
Let’s pretend that you are a marketing exec at a packaged goods company which is on the verge of launching a new, unique laundry detergent. Now let’s pretend that I have put together two distinct groups of people to which you could market — but you can only choose one. The first group is made up of women, aged 25-45 with an average of 1.7 children and average HH incomes above $75k. The other group is made up of people who are all passionate about laundry and other household chores. Which group would you pick?
Hopefully, anyone reading this post will choose the latter group…but I’m not sure this is going to be the case. Many of you will instinctively select the group which is demographically “well defined.” You will feel comforted by the numbers — the hard data. This is because, for as long as any of us can remember, demographics have served as the key to marketing efficiency. They were the light that would guide any campaign. They represented ‘hard’ data which could and should not be questioned — and they demanded (and received) blind loyalty. Just define your demographics and market to them — it was just that simple.
But is the proliferation of the social web enabling a “post-demographic” era for marketers? Is it forcing people to rethink what demographics stand for and how they can and should impact marketing strategies? I certainly think so…
The reality is that demographics are grounded in, as well as dependent on, some loose, simple assumptions. Ultimately, demographic-based marketing is an attempt to achieve higher sales conversion rates. The assumption being that people who fit a specific demographic profile are more likely to be interested in a certain product and therefore more likely to buy it — relative to people from a different demographic. Marketing to a specific demographic would, in theory, provide “more bang” for your marketing buck. Simply put, the assumption chain looks like this:
On face value, this assumption chain is logical, but often (like with all assumptions) flawed. As you move from one assumption to the next in this chain, you lose accuracy. And, by far, the largest “leap of faith” in this chain is the assumption that one’s demographic defines one’s interests. Common sense says that the assumption connecting one’s interests to one’s purchasing behavior is a much safer and more accurate assumption.
But historically, locating people’s interests (in any scalable fashion) has been very difficult — near impossible. So demographics became the de facto method for predicting purchasing behavior. But today, with the social web, it is much more possible to locate interests and passions — bringing us one step closer to purchasing behavior. We can now skip the middle-man. Why worry about demographics when you don’t need to? Why rely on a predictor of interests when you can uncover them directly? (Unfortunately, because it’s safe — no one ever lost their job for buying IBM OR creating a demographic-based marketing strategy).
So, is there something wrong with demographic thinking? Well, not really. It’s just a bit dated (like Don Draper’s wet bar). Will the concept of demographics go the way of the printed newspaper? Probably not. Demographic thinking is still necessary & valid in some cases, but we will start to see its importance diminish quite rapidly in the coming years. Even today, demographics should only be one piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing. We need to realize that what really matters is one’s interests & passions. NOT one’s age or gender.
A good example of this is a question we’re often asked at Traackr. Lately we’ve been approached by a lot of clients looking to target today’s hottest demographic — Mommy Bloggers. The problem with “targeting” Mommy Bloggers is that it is a useless exercise. There are many Mommy Bloggers out there, however the only thing they have in common is that they are women; have children; and write a blog. Other than that, they are as different as peanut butter and tennis shoes. Some Mommy Bloggers blog about high fashion, some about politics, some about technology, some about local diaper deals, etc. The range of their interests and passions are endless as are the reasons people follow them. What’s important is understanding one’s passions and what he or she likes to talk about. Knowing one’s passions is the key to understanding who they are. And knowing who they are is MUCH MORE important than knowing what they are…
So, are you a male advertising or marketing executive over the age of 50 with annual household income above $150k living in or around a major metropolitan city? If so, I don’t care. The real question is whether or not you are someone who is passionate about the future of marketing and the way the social web is and will continue to affect it. That’s what really matters.
Other than that, you can be a dog for all I care… 
DS
The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20)
