“Anyone who launches new products will immediately appreciate the power of this resource to influence design direction, target appropriate price points, and select materials with high consumer appeal. What I love most is that it facilitates open and powerful discussions across the marketing, design and business teams. It minimizes reliance on “the gut feel” of just one individual in an organization and helps create a unified vision for success.”
You’ve done your homework and have a good understanding of the demographics of your consumers via consumer profile studies. Perhaps you’ve also studied your category and have working knowledge of your competitors’ demographics as well. The factors that describe your competitors’ customers might also fit yours. You may well be servicing the same consumer. Yet some of those consumers are buying your products and some are buying your competitors’ products. There is still something different about them. Psychographics might well explain differences that demographics don’t.
Psychographics is the study of people’s attitudes, aspirations and beliefs. It enables us to place people in groups that share common thinking or behaviors. By identifying the brands each group buys, we can learn about the perception of the brands because people buy brands they like and which they perceive to embody qualities they appreciate. We don’t buy brands we don’t identify with.
The housewares and home goods categories are full of examples of brands that segregate based on psychographics.
Here are three brands – all in cookware and dinnerware – that have clear and unique positionings:
It’s not likely that anyone who would buy Gordon Ramsey would buy anything Ree Drummond and visa versa. Each brand has a unique vibe that comes to life via their products and marketing efforts, each of which are inconsistent with the other brands.
Personality-based brands embody the psychographics of their products because their chief attraction is the person the brand is based on. People in these roles emphasize and differentiate through their values, attitudes and lifestyles. You don’t have to have a celebrity to personify your brand (although we have a proven methodology that can help you determine which celebrity will best suit your current portfolio AND bring in the strongest revenue!). Just as these celebrities communicate values through their behaviors, lifestyles and product choices, your brand can communicate its positioning through lifestyle, personality, quality, design, performance, pricing and distribution. Call or email us today to discuss this avenue to product development and brand growth!