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Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe traits of humans on psychological attributes. Psychographics have been applied to the study of
personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, ...
, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and
lifestyles Lifestyle often refers to: * Lifestyle (sociology), the way a person lives * ''Otium'', ancient Roman concept of a lifestyle * Style of life (german: Lebensstil, link=no), dealing with the dynamics of personality Lifestyle may also refer to: Bus ...
. Two approaches to psychographics include analysis of consumers' activities, interests, and opinions (AIO variables), and values and lifestyles (VALS). Psychographics are applied to the study of cognitive attributes such as attitudes, interests, opinions, and
belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to tak ...
, as well as the study of overt
behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as we ...
(e.g., activities). Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of
marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
, demographics, opinion research, prediction, and social research in general. Psychographic attributes can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as purchase data or usage rate), and organizational descriptors (sometimes called firmographic variables), such as industry, number of employees, and functional area. Psychographic methods gained prominence in the
2016 US presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
and the opposing campaigns of
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
and
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, with the latter using them extensively in
microtargeting Microtargeting is the use of online data to tailor advertising messages to individuals, based on the identification of recipients’ personal vulnerabilities. Such tactics can be used for promoting a product or a political candidate. Direct marketi ...
advertisements to narrow constituencies.


Psychographic profiling

A "psychographic profile" consists of a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up. These profiles are used in
market segmentation In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as ''segments'') based on some type of shared charact ...
as well as in
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
. Some categories of psychographic factors used in market segmentation include: * activity, interest, opinion (AIOs) * attitudes * values * behavior * expressions * gesture Psychographic can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" when it is used for segmentation at a national level.


Comparison to demographics

Psychographics is often confused with demographics, in which historical generations may be defined both by demographics, such as the years in which a particular generation is born or even the fertility rates of that generation's parents, but also by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality formation, and cultural touchstones. For example, the traditional approaches to defining the
Baby Boom Generation Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. Th ...
,
Generation X Generation X (or Gen X for short) is the Western demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the millennials. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1960s as starting birth years and the late 1970s to early 1980s ...
, or
Millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 20 ...
rely on both demographic variables (classifying individuals based on birth years) and psychographic variables (such as beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors).
Infusionsoft Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) is a private company that offers an e-mail marketing and sales platform for small businesses, including products to manage customers, customer relationship management, marketing, and e-commerce. It is based in Chandl ...
published an article arguing that customer psychographic segmentation is more useful than demographic information.


See also

*
Attitudinal targeting {{inadequate lede, date=December 2017 For the purpose of better understanding attitudinal targeting, it can be discussed using the 5 Ws and one H: who, what, when, where, why, and how. David Grossman, author of the article "How To Communicate Bette ...
*
Behavior modification Behavior modification is an early approach that used respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior. Based on methodological behaviorism, overt behavior was modified with consequences, including positive and negative reinforcement conti ...
* Behavioral targeting *
Black propaganda Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propagand ...
* Brainwashing *
Consumer analytics A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...
* Consumer intelligence * Demographic targeting *
Disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
* Freedom of choice *
Geo-targeting In geomarketing and internet marketing, geotargeting is the method of delivering different content to visitors based on their geolocation. This includes country, region/state, city, metro code/ zip code, organization, IP address, ISP, or other cr ...
*
Geodemographic segmentation In marketing, geodemographic segmentation is a multivariate statistical classification technique for discovering whether the individuals of a population fall into different groups by making quantitative comparisons of multiple characteristics with ...
* Market analysis *
Market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Ma ...
*
Market segmentation In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as ''segments'') based on some type of shared charact ...
*
Marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
*
Microsegment In marketing, a microsegment is a more advanced form of market segmentation that groups a number of customers of the business into specific segments based on various factors including behavioral predictions. Once identified, microsegments can becom ...
*
Misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is ''deliberately'' deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn ...
* Political warfare *
Project MKUltra Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...
*
Propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
* Psychometrics *
Psychological warfare Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and M ...
*
Positioning (marketing) Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors and different from the concept of brand awareness. In order to position products or brands, compa ...
* Product differentiation *
Segmenting and positioning In marketing, segmenting, targeting and positioning (STP) is a broad framework that summarizes and simplifies the process of market segmentation.Moutinho, L., "Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning and Strategic Marketing," Chapter 5 in Strategic Ma ...
* Serviceable available market *
Subliminal advertising Subliminal stimuli (; the prefix ' literally means "below" or "less than") are any sensory stimuli below an individual's threshold for conscious perception, in contrast to stimuli (above threshold). A 2012 review of functional magnetic resonanc ...
* Targeted advertising * Target audience * Total addressable market * Values Modes


References

{{reflist, 30em


External links


www.netmba.com/marketing/market/segmentation

www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/ustypes.shtml


appendix to ''Lee the American'' by Gamaliel Bradford
How to Use Psychographic Data in Online Marketing
by Susan Gilbert Market research Market segmentation Marketing research Political campaign techniques