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.

One Man Dies and We All Bleed

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concretewhen no one else ever cared.

Tupac Shakur 1971-1996

This is my second article for my blog. I am enjoying the fact that I am now writing- its very cathartic and I look forward to my next article. This article is very much coming from my heart. For a while now I have been mentoring a once homeless guy- Alain. It’s a scheme that Publicis, a former agency of mine, set up and I have been ‘mentoring’ Alain off and on for the last 4 years. Alain is a sensitive guy who for reasons he has never fully gone into, found himself on the streets with no job and little chance for a successful career. He is black and English is not his first language. He was born in France. I had never done anything like this before, but I felt that I could spare some of my time in the privileged world I live in and maybe… just maybe help someone who has not had the start I had.

I had no idea what to expect or what was expected of me. And I never dreamed the experience would be beneficial to me. At the beginning, I met with Alain every 2 weeks. Me being me, went into overdrive and tried to get Alain role playing, on the Internet and getting his CV to a good standard in the first few meetings. I realised early on that our worlds were so far apart that actually my role became less of a mentor but more of a friend- someone to support him, someone who would listen to him when he felt down, someone who would give him a bit of money at Christmas. Our meetings were quite infrequent- I often got frustrated as Alain would say he would come and meet me but often he would cancel at the last minute. In his world, this is probably usual. He got a job at Marks and Spencer and I used to go and see him now and then and say hello. He was doing well but one day he was caught stealing a toy and got sacked. This was very difficult for Alain, he was very down about the whole story. I was cross with him although I tried not to show it as I felt how could he be so stupid and give up his chance of breaking through the concrete. Anyhow, after a series of retail jobs, he is now working at Habitat part time.

Alain came over on sat to meet my mum, husband and my little baby boy Jedd. I hadn’t seen Alain for about 8 months. It warmed my heart to see him again. We spent the whole day together rather than our usual snatches of conversations in between my busy day. He introduced me to Tupac Shakur who I had previously never heard of. Tupac’s poetry is beautiful and brings sunshine and sadness into Alain’s life. It felt good to spend time with someone who wasn’t ‘white, middle class and in a well paying professional job in London.’ There are no superficial conversations with Alain. He talks about God (much to the annoyance of my agnostic husband), he talks about things that affect his soul, make him cry and weep. It made me think how your start in life is so important. We are all products of our beginnings. Alain unfortunately didn’t get a good start and is still struggling to break the poverty cycle and make something of his life. I hope that he can be the rose who breaks through the concrete. But if he doesn’t I will at least be there to care.