If you’ve never heard of Post Demographic Consumerism, you’re not the only one. The term is quite new and unknown, but the implications it has for the way you penetrate markets and do marketing, sales and growth hacking, are huge.

What is Post Demographic Consumerism?

Trendwatching.com defines Post Demographic Consumerism as ‘People – of all ages and in all markets – are constructing their own identities more freely than ever. As a result, consumption patterns are no longer defined by ‘traditional’ demographic segments such as age, gender, location, income, family status and more.’

Post Demographic Consumerism has everything to do with consumer behavior and the demographics used to define it. Marketers in the past used traditional demographics. However, as customer’s behavior is changing and shifting to new horizons, and markets are constructing, there is a need to step away from these traditional demographic segments. Traditional demographics are just not sufficient anymore and will result in targeting the wrong people and a misunderstanding of your ideal customer.

Why is Post Demographic Consumerism important?

There are 4 factors defined by Trendwatching.com that caused post demographic consumerism to arise in brand positioning.

  1. Access

We, as a consumer, now have access to more and to global information. Cannot find that pair of sneakers in your own country? No worries just look for a vendor in another country and you might even get a better price.

  1. Permission

As a consumer, you no longer must follow the convention. You can express yourself and have a unique identity, without having to settle for the convention.

  1. Ability

Consumers are not bounded to the brands, products, and services in their region anymore: you now have the ability to discover and identify with a wider variety of brands, products and services. This also is linked to the aspect of personalization.

  1. Desire

Say goodbye to the status quo. The connection between financial situation of people and their social status is changing. This means that money doesn’t equal power anymore and comes with a shift in power.

What are the opportunities of Post Demographic Consumerism for brands and marketeers?

Having covered the theoretical side, it’s time to move over to the practical implementations post demographic consumerism has for marketers.

  1. No more stereotypes

Companies should stop presenting their products and services with a stereotypical approach: it’s not because we think of girly with the color pink, that men don’t like the color. So, step away from the stereotype and take an open mindset while targeting your audience.

Take CoverGirl as an example – a make-up brand targeting everyday woman between 18 and 45. Make-up used to be linked to women only: all print ads, commercials and targeting of make-up brands was done by and towards woman. CoverGirl decided to change this up a bit. They noticed James Charles, a male Youtuber giving make-up tutorials to his online followers, and his audience consisting of both men as women. CoverGirl decided to step away from the traditional gender pattern and made him their first male spokesperson. By doing this, CoverGirl led the example in the beauty industry, with many make-up brands, such as Maybelline, MAC Cosmetics… following.

  1. Step away from averages and benchmarks

Marketers must step away from averages and learn to accept that ‘it was always like this’ is no longer an option. Instead of taking the traditional demographics such as age, income, gender in your segmentation, it will be much more beneficial to use attitudes, behavior, interests, and motivations of the customer.

Let us take Secondhand shopping as an example. As a secondhand shop using the traditional demographic such as income to target their customers, you will likely only target people with a lower income as you link income to usage of secondhand shops. However, not only people with a lower income, shop secondhand products. There is an increasing trend of people with higher income, who buy it. This can be linked to their interest (sustainability or environmentally friendly) or based on trends. Therefore, stepping away from the old way of thinking ‘only people with low income will buy in secondhand shops’ will be much more beneficial for the secondhand stores.

  1. Go Cross-demographic

As a marketer, it is important to keep the friends and family of consumers in the back of your mind. These are a part of the population you do not necessarily reach if you keep using traditional demographics. Look at psychographics, such as motivation, hobbies, interests, to have a better idea of people. Adapt this in your messaging, reach them at the right time and the right moment, and your clientele will grow.

Let’s take Lush as an example. Lush is an environmentally friendly cosmetics, such as soap, lotions,… Cosmetics companies usually target woman between 15 and 40, but by having the environmentally friendly aspect in their value proposition and implemented in their offering, they can also be targeted to people who have an environmental friendly attitude. Therefore, Lush is able to go cross-demographic. Imagine a 16 year old girl buying Lush: the chances are that her family and friends share similar attitudes and behaviors, and therefore, will also buy Lush.

  1. Start doing Niche targeting

As a company, it is can be interesting to target smaller segments based on interests or behavior, instead of the traditional demographics. So as a company it is important to get personal and also get very niche.

Take ‘Pop Your Pup’ as an example. This companies enables dog owners to print their dog’s picture on every type of clothing or item imaginable: going from pillow, to t-shirt, facemasks. As you can imagine, this market is quite niche and by targeting on smaller interest-based segments, ‘Pop Your Pup’ can reach their target audience.

Post Demographic Consumerism: conclusion

What are you waiting for? Try mixing it up by using other demographics, such as interests, attitudes, or behavior to target your customers. You’ll discover soon that traditional demographics are almost extinct…

 

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