By Sophia Durrani
CMOs and brands need to rethink the way they approach audiences. As an industry, we spend too long generalising and marketing to audiences based solely on their age group, gender, and location—and this has to stop. It’s a problem that constantly rears its head every time we seek to define a new age group or social movement that we don’t quite understand.
Baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and now Gen Z. The received wisdom is that each subsequent generation seeks to challenge the cultural and social order to distinguish itself from its immediate predecessor. Of course, it isn’t really that straightforward, but these types of generalisations are still rife in our industry.
The reality of this kind of labelling is that we are suggesting entire generations are homogenous groups embodying particular attitudes and behaviours, and the same applies to housewives, families, and more. These types of reductionist assumptions can be detrimental to your brand’s marketing strategy.
As an industry, all too often, we ignore the fact that attitudes and lifestyle are what predominantly drives purchasing behaviours, rather than demographics. Humans are too complex and nuanced for these basic statistics to tell CMOs everything they need to know about their customers, let alone unlock a communications strategy that will truly connect with them and drive those all-important sales.
