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Psychographics

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Not to be confused with psychography.

Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe traits of humans on psychological attributes.[1] Psychographics have been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.[2] Two approaches to psychographics include analysis of consumers' activities, interests, and opinions (AIO variables), and values and lifestyles (VALS).[3]

Psychographics are applied to the study of cognitive attributes such as attitudes, interests, opinions, and belief, as well as the study of overt behavior (e.g., activities).[4]

Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing, demographics, opinion research, prediction, and social research in general. Psychographic attributes can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as purchase data or usage rate), and organizational descriptors (sometimes called firmographic variables), such as industry, number of employees, and functional area.

Psychographic methods gained prominence in the 2016 US presidential election and the opposing campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with the latter using them extensively in microtargeting advertisements to narrow constituencies.[5]

Psychographic profiling

A "psychographic profile" consists of a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up. These profiles are used in market segmentation as well as in advertising. Some categories of psychographic factors used in market segmentation include:

  • activity, interest, opinion (AIOs)
  • attitudes
  • values
  • behavior
  • expressions
  • gesture

Psychographic can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" when it is used for segmentation at a national level.[6]

Comparison to demographics

Psychographics is often confused with demographics, in which historical generations may be defined both by demographics, such as the years in which a particular generation is born or even the fertility rates of that generation's parents, but also by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality formation, and cultural touchstones. For example, the traditional approaches to defining the Baby Boom Generation, Generation X, or Millennials rely on both demographic variables (classifying individuals based on birth years) and psychographic variables (such as beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors).

Infusionsoft published an article arguing that customer psychographic segmentation is more useful than demographic information.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Wells, William D. (May 1975). "Psychographics: A critical review". Journal of Marketing Research. 12 (2): 196–213. doi:10.2307/3150443. JSTOR 3150443.
  2. ^ Senise, Jairo (28 September 2007). "Who Is Your Next Customer?". Booz Allen Hamilton Inc, Strategy+Business.
  3. ^ Blasius, Jörg; Mühlichen, Andreas (2010-02-01). "Identifying audience segments applying the "social space" approach". Poetics. 38 (1): 69–89. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2009.10.003. ISSN 0304-422X.
  4. ^ Anderson, Thomas W., Jr.; Golden, Linda L. (1984). "Lifestyle and psychographics: A critical review and recommendation". Advances in Consumer Research. 11: 405–411.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ Resnick, Brian (March 26, 2018). "Cambridge Analytica's "psychographic microtargeting": what's bullshit and what's legit". Vox. New York City: Vox Media. Retrieved February 15, 2020.
  6. ^ a b Saunders, Amy (2016-05-09). "Why Psychographic Segmentation is Important". Infusionsoft.com. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
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