Jeweller - April 2022

BUSINESS
Selling
Demographics is dead –
Here comes Personality Profiling!
Just when we thought that demographics are key to developing effective selling strategies,
maybe we should think again. Let BRIAN WALKER explain how retailers could go the right path.
Australia’s total retail spend in pre-COVID
(2019) was $320 billion. Based on an
average of 5 per cent direct and indirect
spending to attract customers, around $16
billion is spent each year on marketing.
If you ascribe to John Wanamaker’s
’theory’ that 50 per cent of all advertising
and marketing is fundamentally wasted,
about $8 billion per year is wasted, or at
least, ineffective.
Has our traditional perspective of
demographic studies (gender, age,
postcode, etc) led to the ‘well-spent 50 per
cent’ versus the other ‘wasted’ half?
Can we see a definitive link to
demographics and brand resonance other
than a generalised, largely unconnected
relationship?
More importantly, in the digital age, can
store and website design, marketing
segmentation and customer navigation, be
accurately predicted and mapped through
traditional demographics?
Perhaps, in an assumptive manner,
however, today there are more definitive
methods in understanding consumer
profiling or personality types.
Traditional demographics is not enough
Growing up, we were made aware of the
‘rational consumer’ - where all buying
decisions were rational and demographics
ruled the world. As retailers, we devise
campaigns to attract customers whom we
believe would make clear decisions with
respect to age, gender and location.
But guess what? Humans are irrational -
bound by degrees of our emotional senses.
Not many people realise that:
• 95 per cent of new products fail
• Physical stores only convert an
average of 30 per cent
• Online retailers only convert 3 per cent
on average
• 98 per cent of direct mail gets no
response
• 98 per cent of marketing emails don’t
convert
Understand consumers on an intimate and emotional level.
Your brand as a human being
Think about your retail brand being made
up of a unique set of values, which create
its personality to attract consumers
with the same values. As with product
brands, values are emotional and largely
subconscious. Humans build friendships
based on trust and shared values are
consistent and reliable.
The same applies in building brand
relationships. Thus, classic demographic
profiling methods simply don’t work
because they ‘speak’ to consumers as
rational beings – and we now know there’s
no such thing as a rational consumer.
Humanising your brand means tapping into
these subconscious and inherent values to
understand consumers on an intimate and
emotional level.
Demographics out – profiling in
Consumer neuroscience posits that the
subconscious limbic system influences
95 per cent of decisions. It’s the part of
the brain involved in our behavioural
and emotional responses, and answers
the question of why customers behave
the way they do and it’s not random or
unpredictable.
Imagine a fashion brand for women with
an income of over $1 million, aged 25 to
35, – a classic demographic segmentation
and two women in this segment are Queen
of Pop, Katy Perry and future ‘queen’ of
We were
focused on
‘how’ consumers
interact with
our brands,
when the
missing link
has always
been ‘why’
consumers
choose our
brands and
products.
England, Kate Middleton.
However, both women are worlds apart -
their life and fashion choices determined
by personality types, which explains the
‘why’.
Another example: a man who purchases a
shirt from a store every three months and
did so for the last two years. His preferred
shirt style is known, however not ‘why’ he
chose the store, selected the shirt or chose
the time to purchase.
What subconscious mechanisms influence
a person’s decision to purchase five items
out of a possible 25,000 SKUs? The Limbic
system acts as a relevance detector
whether a stimulus - such as packaging
or product design - can either be relevant
or not, whether we perceive it at all, and
choose a product off-the-shelf.
What resonates with us – before we are
aware of it – occurs in the Limbic system.
So, when it comes to packaging, branding
and overall product design, recognising
what your target customers’ most
dominant emotional system is crucial.
It determines whether a product or
brand stands out, attracts and enables
customers to identify ’the one' amongst
the sea of sameness. We were focused on
‘how’ consumers interact with our brands,
when the missing link has always been
“why” consumers choose our brands.
Neuroscience allows us to better
understand personality profiles and
subconscious emotional drivers, and
we figure out the connection with
certain brands.
Behind each personality type is an amazing
set of subconscious drivers, which
determines how, why and whether or not
consumers will interact with brands. After
all, it’s a 50/50 chance they are right.
BRIAN WALKER is the founder and
managing director of Retail Doctor
Group, a retail consulting company.
Visit: retaildoctor.com.au
60 | April 2022