Psychographics
Psychographics describe people in terms of their day-to-day activities, interest, opinion, personalities and personal values. Psychographics research mainly focuses on the measurement of AIO (Activity, Interest, and Opinion).
A psychographic profile indicates how well each lifestyle statement describes him or her. AIO response reveals the lifestyle of an individual. They can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioural variables (such as usage rate or loyalty), and firm graphic variables (such as industry, seniority and functional area). Psychographics should not be confused with demographics. For example, historical generations are defined by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality formation, and cultural touchstones.
The traditional definition of the "Baby Boom Generation" has been the subject of much criticism because it is based on demographic variables where it should be based on psychographic variables while all other generations are defined by psychographic variables, the Boomer definition is based on a demographic variable: the fertility rates of its members' parents.
When a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up is constructed, this is called a "psychographic profile". Psychographic 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): AIOs describe how consumers spend their time (activities), what they like or prioritize (interests), and their beliefs or views (opinions), helping marketers understand lifestyle patterns.
- Attitudes: Attitudes reflect consumers’ positive or negative feelings toward products, brands, or ideas, which strongly influence buying decisions.
- Values: Values are deep-rooted beliefs about what is important in life (such as quality, honesty, or sustainability) and guide long-term consumer preferences and behaviour.
In fact, psychographic connote the idea of consumer and involve the investigation of three different aspect which are used to assist market strategic –
- Lifestyle: Lifestyle reflects the way consumers live, spend their time and money, and express themselves through activities, interests, and opinions, influencing their purchasing choices.
- Personality: Personality refers to an individual’s unique psychological traits (such as confidence, innovativeness, or risk-aversion) that affect brand preference and buying behaviour.
- Demographics: Demographics include measurable factors like age, gender, income, education, and occupation, which help marketers segment markets and predict consumer needs.
The marketer can use this information on personality and psychographic for segmenting customers, for positioning products for designing media strategy e.tc. Psychographics can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" as used most commonly in national segmentation. "Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles"
Life Style
The concept of life style is highly co related with consumer's value system and his personality. Life style is reflected by consumers AIO (Activity, Interest & Opinion). The basic logic between the life style segmentation is that consumers who engage in different activities and have different interest and opinion from others can be clustered together to form a homogeneous segment. Then research can reveal the product usage pattern that is unique to this segment. This enables the marketers to understand as how is product fit into the customer general pattern of behavior.
Life Style Characteristics
- It is a group phenomenon - A personal lifestyle bears the influence of his participation in social group and the influence of his relationship with others.
- Lifestyle pervades various aspect of life - Knowing the person conduct in one aspect of life may enable one to product how the person may be having in other areas.
- Lifestyle implies a central life interest - For every individual there are certain interests that are central to his life like family, work, politics e.tc.
- Life style may vary according to sociologically relevant variables – The rate of change in the society has a great deal to do with variation in life style.
Approaches of study of life style
- AIO Approach – One of the most popular ways for segmentation, targeting and positioning is to study the life style variable through an activity interest and opinion inventory. In constructing an inventory of such lifestyle statement first go through market research and could be of help in isolating psychographic variables.
- Life style Approach – In India life style profile of kids, junior executive, housewife e.tc have been prepared. These categories exhibit different value system and life style pattern. A study of those patterns then in turn gives the idea to marketer of various products whether their offering will fit into their respective lifestyle or not.
Reference Group
A reference group is the group whose imitation an individual does while forming values, beliefs, attitudes, opinions and behavior. In general reference group is a group is a group of people whom you refer while making buying decision. It influences consumer behavior by building aspirations for the individual and helping him to choose the product for a particular lifestyle. They are small groups and consist of family, close friends or any other group of people you associate with reference group affect consumer by importing information.
Types of Reference Group
- Membership of a Group
- Primary Vs Secondary – A primary reference group is one with which the individual has frequent face to face contact. Member exerts significant influence on each member example – family. Secondary reference group is one in which interaction with other members is less frequent. The power to influence is far less than primary group. Example – club members.
- Formal Vs Informal – A formal group is one in which some sort of structure and in some cases, there could be specific member requirements. Informal groups are those that have no special membership or attendance requirement other than some common interest thus friends form an informal group.
- Aspirational Group – All the above-mentioned groups are membership group. A group to which an individual does not belong is known as Aspirational group. Here individual may attempt to emulate group member d by acting, dressing and even thinking the way they see that the member does.
- Positive Vs Negative Group – Reference group can also be classified as to whether they attract or repel the individual. Positive groups are those with whom a person wants to be identified whereas negative groups those whom a person avoids are being identified.
Practical Insight: Understanding psychographics especially lifestyle (people’s activities, interests, and opinions) helps businesses connect deeply with real customer behavior and tailor products or marketing that fit how people actually live and think, not just who they are demographically.
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