Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

groupings. Psychographics is a more recent approach that attempts to iden-

tify segments based on lifestyle characteristics, attitudes and personality.

Rather than concentrating on single factors such as age, sex, marital status it

attempts to build a broader picture of consumers’ lifestyles based on their

activities, interests and opinions. Asking a series of questions about con-

sumers’ activities, interests and opinions as well as questions about product

and service usage identifies these lifestyles (see Figure 4.13).

70 Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control

Activities Interests Opinions Demographics

Work Family Themselves Age

Hobbies Home Socialissues Education

Social events Job Politics Income

Vacation Community Business Occupation

Entertainment Recreation Economics Family size

Club membership Fashion Education Dwelling

Community Food Products Geography

Shopping Media Future City size

Sports Achievements Culture Stage in life cycle

Figure 4.13
Questions posed in
Lifestyle studies
(Source: Plummer,
1974)

Several models have been developed using this approach. These models

do have broad similarities. There is a range of these models available, two

will be discussed in more detail.

The Webster–Wind framework

The model was developed in the USA by asking 2713 individuals

800 questions. The VALs framework identified nine lifestyle groups in the

American population. The model also identifies three developmental

stages that individuals may pass through. Normally individuals would

move from one of the need-driven stages to either an outer- or an inner-

directed stage. This is a hierarchical model and relatively few would reach

the integrated stage (see Figure 4.14).

The framework is divided into a series of segments:

● The needs driven segment identified by this model have relatively lit-

tle purchasing power and are therefore of marginal interest to profit-

making organisations. This is a declining group in western societies.

● The outer-directed groups are more affluent and are interested in sta-

tus products that other individuals will notice. They are therefore

interested in brand names such as Rolex and Cartier.

● Inner directed individuals in contrast are more concerned with their

individual needs rather than external values. This is an important sector,