When retailers talk about psychographics, they’re referring to personal values and the shopper habits affected by those values. Demographics (age, gender, income level) and psychographics are often two ways of looking at the same thing. For instance, women generally have different personal values and shopping habits than do men. But the psychographic approach gives the retailer more focused hints for making sales.
Except when the analysis is insufficiently refined, that is. A recent Bloomberg Businessweek article describes how Toyota dealers suffered from this happening: Figuring that Toyota is America’s largest producer of cars, the company—along with a number of influential industry analysts—expected Toyota to swipe sales of large pickup trucks from GM, Ford, and Chrysler as the market for pickups picked up.
But the psychographics of buyers of large trucks are different from the psychographics of car buyers. A more refined analysis using data from Nielsen Claritas indicated that compared to Toyota large truck prospects, the GM and Ford prospects are more likely to dine at Cracker Barrel restaurants, have dial-up Internet, and use the paper Yellow Pages. The Toyota prospects were more likely to dine at steakhouses, shop online, own golf clubs, and subscribe to Runner's World.
This sort of focus gives specifics to be used in merchandising, marketing, and selling. Psychographic analysis for the PowerBar sports nutrition line produced a recommendation that the products be displayed alongside personal grooming items. The focus from refinement also protects against you being buried in trivial findings, while staying open to being surprised. A collaboration of researchers at Columbia University, Advertising Age, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune found that people most interested in buying fishing equipment also enjoy listening to Christian rock music and reading Southern Living.
Whether contracting with a market research firm to provide you psychographic information or gathering and analyzing your own data, always be angling for further refinement.
At the same time, recognize there will be individual exceptions to the overall refined findings. A comment posted to the online version of the Bloomberg Businessweek article reads, “I've built several computers, use an htpc to watch the internet on my plasma, use voip instead of telco, never owned a gun, but have several bikes. I own 3 F150's and no toytas [sic].”
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