Psychographics is a method by which one can analyze and understand a social group and whereby one could get information about the psychological response to given situations by particular groups or individual persons. Psychographics is understood as a medium for understanding the diverse beliefs, opinions and interests of customers.1. It is also defined as profiling the perception, attitudes, feelings and preferences of customers and understanding the mental processes of customers in purchase decisions.
Psychographics a very effective tool of communication to the marketer, based on which appropriate marketing strategies can be formulated and implemented. It is believed that psychographics is perhaps a better method of understanding consumer behavior when compared with other behavioral tools such as psychodynamics, neuro-linguistics and design psychology. According to Harold Finkleman, "Psychographics enables to understand who we are in communication with, and how they would react to particular situations, whether it would be in a positive or negative manner and would thereby enable to have an understanding into their decisions made on the basis of their lifestyles and values upheld."2 We can use it to help us anticipate the psychological response to scientific individuals or audience to just about anything.
1. James.W.Peltier; John.A. Schibrowsky; Don, Schultz and John, Davis (2002), "Interactive Psychographics: Cross-Selling in the Banking Industry," Journal of Advertising Research. 42(2)
2. James.W.Peltier; John.A. Schibrowsky; Don, Schultz and John, Davis (2002) p..8
Market segmentation is one of the key marketing activities, which involves classification of population with the objective of identifying target groups on whom the marketing efforts can be focused. "Segmentation is essential for designing marketing and communication strategies to enable marketers reach out to the customers."3 A common method is to use the technique of demographics, by which the market is segmented based on gender, age, education, occupation, income, marital status and ethnic background. Demographics provides important information on the characteristics of the target market; for instance whether the population is dominated by youth or old, what is the average level of education and how much average disposal income is available with the potential customers. Thus, demographics provide basic information on the market participants but stops short of providing information on the psychological profiles of the customers. For example, with demographic data, it is not possible to know about the 'sentimental factors' that are involved in the purchase of an apartment by a middle class salaried worker. Another method of segmentation is by geographic, which is classifying the market based on boundaries and regions. 4 This again does not present a total view of the customer profiles.
3. M. McDonald and I. Dunbar (1995) 'Market Segmentation', Macmillan Press, London, p.47
4. George S. Low (2000), "Correlates of Integrated Marketing Communications," Journal of Advertising Research, 40 (May/June), 29
Psychographics is now recognized as an important and necessary tool in market segmentation as it attempts to unravel the buyer characteristics. Characteristics of psychographics include personality, attitude and lifestyle of buyers. Personality is of different types - compulsive, extrovert, gregarious, adventurous, formal, authoritarian, ambitious, enthusiastic, positive, indifferent, negative and hostile. "Understanding the personality of buyers would empower the marketer with the inside knowledge of customer expectations and can thus decide on the right marketing approach." Gender-based psychographic profiles have been developed to have a deep insight into buyer behavior. For males, Wells has suggested an eight-point psychological profile - quiet family man, traditionalist, discontented, ethical highbrow, pleasure oriented, achiever, he-man and sophisticated. 5
Obviously, different strategies will have to be adopted for each of these groups if a marketer is to be successful. The marketer can group the segment based on these psychological characteristics to evolve the right strategy. For instance, if psychographic segmentation shows that a group of potential buyers are young extroverts, then the marketer can design advertisements and commercials to suit such a behavior. "In profiling personality, the pleasure-arousal-dominance model is popular among marketers because it tries to measure the three basic and independent emotional states. Pleasure is a positive emotional state, in which the customer will be in a receptive state to the marketer and will be inclined to buy." 6
5. W.D Wells (1978) 'Lifestyle and Psychographics', American Marketing Association, p.44
6. W.D Wells (1978) p. 45
Arousal refers to the physical and mental alertness and is used to measure the buyer's emotional responses to a positive or negative stimulus. Dominance is about control, when the buyer feels in control of emotions. Personality traits such as anger, anxiety and satisfaction can be related to the three emotional states. Some other psychographic attributes based on the pleasure-arousal-dominance model include relaxed,...
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