Another age: Reframing generational profiling

It’s a fascinating time to be working in market research.  From the pandemic to the cost-of-living crisis, we are at the forefront of illuminating how these extraordinary events are reshaping people’s habits, beliefs and attitudes. As if all of this wasn’t enough, we’re also living through another major shift – the identity revolution. 

Evolving social norms and huge cultural change in the UK mean that we now have the freedoms as well as a new and vastly different lexicon to define ourselves. As market researchers, we need to understand the implications of this in terms of how we categorise and describe audiences. What do these new social identities mean for people’s behaviour and how we track them? 

At Kantar, we’ve been looking at the consequences for how marketers and advertisers use insight to identify audiences and plan campaigns. Our research has focused on how well or not age can be used as a proxy for explaining consumer trends in 2022 and, in particular, how we can use new data tools to explore more complex identities. 

Age alone misses the mark
What we’ve found is that age-based targeting on its own simply isn’t sophisticated enough. By looking at age in isolation, brands are missing out on huge opportunities to reach relevant audiences and boost their return from marketing investment. 

While we can make general assumptions about age-based behaviour, this often captures only half the picture. We now have far more advanced analysis techniques which allow us to segment audiences in different ways, and we need to use these to help clients make more informed decisions about their campaign planning. 

We explored the example of a baby products brand looking to build a campaign around nappies. Traditionally this might have taken a core audience of 25 to 34 year olds. Data would show that this demographic is 2.5 times more likely to have bought nappies in the last year than the average shopper. But using new tools to allow us to slice the data a different way and instead look at people who have had a baby in the past 12 months increased that nappy-buying likelihood number by four to 10 times. From a commercial perspective that represents a dramatic potential boost in marketing effectiveness.   

Skip the generational jargon
There is of course significant cultural emphasis on generational groupings and shorthands like ‘millennial’ or ‘Gen Z’ have proved incredibly sticky. But again, the data shows that these labels don’t capture the complexity or the reality of how many of us behave.

‘Gen X’ as another grouping, for instance, encapsulates an incredibly varied mix of people. Now aged between 42 and 57, individuals in this cohort are likely to have very varied life experiences, cultural views, earning power, political beliefs and so on. For example, 65% of Gen-Xers don’t have children under the age of 15 at home, while 35% do. Within this, you will find people living as a couple and alone, parents with babies and with teenagers, and others without children or ones who have flown the nest. These individuals will be pulled in different directions when it comes to demands on their time, spend and priorities.

Looking at social media use is a good way to explode some of the myths about generational habits and tropes. One might assume that online platforms are slanted towards younger users, and while that is broadly true, data can offer up surprises. TikTok is a great example of this – the median age of a weekly user in Great Britain is actually 33, not 16, which is probably closer to what we might expect and to the assumptions we hold.

The wealth of information we now have at our fingertips is immense, but analysing this data in the right way, without falling back on tired stereotypes, is key to helping businesses make best use of it and derive real value. At a time when rising inflation in particular is shifting consumer behaviour, businesses need to understand the nuances of how trends will track across evolving identities.

As market researchers we have a vital role to play in this. By demonstrating the power of new data techniques and different thinking to inform more sophisticated targeting, we can help business to make better decisions and invest more wisely. 

Gary Brown is lead analyst at Kantar TGI