To Label or Not To Label?

I was listening to a programme last night on radio 4 about autism and aspergers syndrome. One of the points raised was that now 1 in 10 of our children have some form of autism. This is a ten fold increase on ten years ago. Is this reflective of that fact that we are now much more cognoscente of our children’s behaviour and put labels on everyone? It started to get me thinking about marketing and segmentation. I had always wondered by labeling and pigeon holing our customers into groups, are we liberating them or stifling them? Are we indeed enabling communications or hindering communications? Are we making the world too black and white when there are so many shades of grey?

Most of the marketing community will have spent many hours pouring over ‘archetypes’, whether it be attitudinal or behavioural ranging from ‘Microwave Mums’ to ‘She’s got to have it shoppers.’ But how does this help us communicate to our customers? Often, I wonder if its just actually easier for us planners and data analysts to work with and feel like we have come up with something new and exciting that can be sold to our clients. It helps the linearity of our brains cope with easily digestible customer segments and makes us feel good about our jobs.

Having started in a direct agency, I soon got used to cutting and slice the customer cake into different pieces and using different channels and messages. I got used to looking for the things that differentiate people rather than unify them. My first account was working for the Royal Mail’s Philatelic division (how incredibly glamourous!) and we held the database in house which meant we could really use every slice of data to help us. This meant that the wealth of data was not only attitudinal but behavioural. Every mailing we did, every result we got would then feed back into the database and be used to refine and evolve our marketing strategy. Creatives were used to getting briefs with different target audiences on. So in this case, putting a label on our customers really helped us and gave the client a lot of confidence in our targeting abilities. But my next brief in an above the line agency did not share the same success. I was now working for a major automotive client in a big agency for a hybrid launch. I clearly felt that there were two distinct audiences: those who were visionaries and early adopters (The Imagineers) and those who were looking for balance in life and a refined driving experience (The Informed Luxury). I wrote two separate creative briefs but rather than illuminate and inform (which is supposedly what I am tasked to do as a planner), I ended up confusing and befuddling both the clients and the creatives. What was crystal clear for me was as clear as mud for them. I succumbed and ended up writing one brief for both audiences and in the end the channel and use of media was what ended up being differentiatior.

So how does this help me answer my original question of whether a label can enable or hinder communications? In my experience, making attitudinal segments based on qual data didn’t help the communication process at all. It made me feel like I really understood the audience and had empathy with their needs and wants. I wanted to pat myself on the back. But the real success of customer segmentation can only really be achieved when you have the data in house and you use every piece of your communications to help you improve and get better. You create both attitudinal and behavioural segments that are so grounded in the actual data rather than your perception of it. So next time you get an urge to write about ‘Microwave Mums’ or ‘She’s got to have it shoppers’, ask yourself who you are doing this for- you or the client business.