Marketing Update
Generational theory helps marketers leap across conventional segmentation boundaries
Geraldine Mitchley, Marketing Manager, Knowledge Factory.
Despite the multitude of segmentation methods at their disposal, modern-day marketers keep on losing precious market share. Having been identified as the most lucrative consumer segment, the ‘buppies’ – young, upwardly mobile black professionals – still seem to be out of grasp for many marketers.
Conventional segmentation exercises, commonly used by these marketers, constantly fail to deliver the intended results, mainly because they are too inflexible and narrow for the accelerated, fragmented markets of the modern economy. Yet, marketers facing this challenge are finding assistance from some surprising sources. One method that is proving very successful is allowing generational theory to inform segmentation exercises.
Generational theory is in vogue right now because marketers are discovering it can really help them understand and reach their customers. It helps reveal important customer connections and touchpoints across demographic, behavioural and psychographic segmentation boundaries, recognising tremendous potential – based on a comprehensive dataset encompassing the 9 000 plus suburbs within South Africa; proper analysis of the data arms marketers with an up-to-date summary of each suburb’s generational make-up.
This was inspired by TomorrowToday.biz’s ‘Mind the Gap’ concept of ‘the generation gap’. We realised that marketers could gain an understanding of the different generations and, in particular, their distribution across South Africa.
Talking ‘bout my generation
Generational theory is based on the premise that people’s collective value systems and so also beliefs, wants, needs and aspirations, are shaped by the particular eras (generations) they are born and raised in.
A ‘generation’ is typically considered to be about 20 years (roughly the shortest time for a human being to normally go from birth to giving birth) and the theory, supported by a growing amount of historical and anecdotal evidence, suggests that people falling within each of these different ‘generations’ can be grouped together into relatively homogenous segments based on their common values.
There are four primary ‘generations’ in existence today: ‘Silent Generation’ (born between 1925 and 1942); ‘Boomers’ (born between 1943 and 1960); ‘Generation X’ (born between 1961 and 1981) and the ‘Millennials’ (born from 1982 onwards).
In its simplest terms, this theory helps us to understand why two 30-year-old South Africans, whatever their cultural or racial mix, have more in common with each other than they do with their parents.
Detailed demographic information from the 2001 Census has been cross-tabulated with the specific South African Generational timelines proposed by the UCT Institute.
Tel: (011) 445-8100
Email: geraldinem@knowledgefactory.co.za
Website: www.knowledgefactory.co.za
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