Are You a Motorist or a Pedestrian?

“Segmentation” has always been a worthy goal of marketers. It’s a good way to
target customers, so they don’t waste your time going after people who don’t like
them anyway.

It makes sense for them to know who might buy their product. Rich people or
poor? Young vs. old, farmers or city-dwellers? College grads, illiterates, parsons or
felons? It’s useful to put them into big buckets. That makes targeting makes efforts
efficient.

The accepted wisdom is “psychographics”---the art of grouping people into lifestyles.
Psychologists have sliced up the population into many pieces, like----Early Achievers,
Stay-at-Homers, Frontrunners, Bookworms, and Deadenders.

The problem is it pigeonholes people into static stereotypes. Once you’re a Trend
Buster, always a Trend Buster. But people change roles and attitudes daily, even
hourly. Are you same person at eight as at five? Monday as Saturday? At a ball
game as in a traffic jam?

I ask my students whether they are a motorist or a pedestrian. Most think awhile,
then choose the one with best fits them. (They thought I was analyzing their inner
selves.) But after discussion they all agree that the right answer is, “BOTH---it
depends!” And there are times they are a cyclist or an equestrian. Sometimes
they’re even motionless.

Psychographics can be interesting, maybe useful. But it becomes psychobabble
when it replaces common sense. Wouldn’t be better if they would segment a
product according to the benefit it bestows, and let the customers self-select across
all artificial lines?

I have invented a new way. It’s called “Schizographics.” It groups the citizens
according to what ails them. I haven’t able to sell it yet