Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
At the beginning of the chapter, we explained that two consumers (say, you and your best friend) can be
similar in age, personality, gender, and so on but still purchase very different products. If you have ever
watched the television show Wife Swap, you can see that despite people’s similarities (e.g., being middle-
class Americans who are married with children), their lifestyles can differ radically.
To better understand consumers and connect with them, companies have begun looking more closely at
consumers’ lifestyles. This often includes asking consumers to fill out extensive questionnaires or
conducting in-depth interviews with them. The questionnaires go beyond asking people about the
products they like, where they live, and what sex they are. Instead, researchers ask people what they do—
that is, how they spend their time and what their priorities, values, and general outlooks on the world are.
Where do they go other than work? Who do they like to talk to? What do they talk about? Researchers
hired by Procter & Gamble have gone so far as to follow women around for weeks as they shop, run
errands, and socialize with one another. [8]Other companies have paid people to keep a daily journal of
their activities and routines.
Audio Clip
Interview with Joy Mead
http://app.wistia.com/embed/medias/45f9c7fa67
Joy Mead is an associate director of marketing for Procter & Gamble. Listen to this audio clip to learn
about the approach Procter & Gamble takes to understand customers.
A number of research organizations examine lifestyle and psychographic characteristics of
consumers. Psychographics combines the lifestyle traits of consumers (for example, whether they are
single or married, wealthy or poor, well-educated or high school dropouts) and their personality styles
with an analysis of their attitudes, activities, and values to determine groups of consumers with similar
characteristics. We will talk more about psychographics and what companies do to develop further insight
into what consumers want in Chapter 5 "Market Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning".
KEY TAKEAWAY