By Robert Wheatley

Insight Not Demographics Drives Communication

One of our favorite blog sites, WonderBranding: Marketing to Women has a remarkably insightful post about how culture and behavior drivers can impact purchase decisions for female consumers. The analogy is embedded in what’s termed a “neighborhood concept” - the metaphor related to cultural cues or “microcosms” that distinguish and separate the flavor, ambiance and point of view of one neighborhood to another.

Her thesis: energy source + time horizon = purchasing process. The four neighborhoods are characterized in the graphic below:

In the end her point is this: sources of a woman’s energy (internal vs. external) have an effect on how decisions are made as well as her personal time horizons, described as “in the moment” or legacy related, meaning more “other” focused than “me.” One size indeed does not fit all nor one communications strategy.

Much of the time we’re looking at female or male consumers for that matter from a demographic angle. Yet insight like this can be tremendously important to helping us dial in communications that will resonate because the messaging is honed more closely to the targets needs and behaviors.

What do you think?