Changing values
Speech given by Dr. Andreas Kricsfalussy, Deutscher Marketing-Tag, Frankfurt/Main, October 25, 2007
Getting a handle on consumers?
In the past, traditional socio-demographic data and purchase behavior patterns allowed companies to make sound judgments about consumers’ values and desires. But the current transformation of values is leading to increasing individualization and variety among brand users. Traditional criteria are now as good as useless for defining clear market segments. In the past, for example, BMW drivers formed a clear-cut group in terms of traditional socio-demographic indicators such as age, income and size of household. But in the last ten years alone, the spread of BMW brand users as regards income has more than doubled.
What is more, new styles of consumption are emerging that the traditional criteria cannot capture, such as the new “lifestyle of health and sustainability” (LOHAS) market segment – high-spending consumers who are concerned about sustainable living and health. According to calculations carried out by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, this market segment already accounts for 16% of the German population and it is growing all the time. Problematically, the LOHAS market segment cuts right across the income and age groups, leading Germany’s Zukunftsinstitut – a prominent think tank dedicated to examining future trends – to describe the LOHAS market segment as an “ageless and classless phenomenon.”
Customer transparency through value-based marketing
In response to these developments, modern segmentation methods attempt to broaden their perspective. One example is the RB Profiler, developed by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. The RB Profiler is a value-based marketing tool that has the advantage of combining customer values and brand values within a single system, making consumer behavior predictable. For example BMW customers, for all their increasing socio-demographic differences, display a consistent value profile that is quite distinct from that of the buyers of alternative premium automotive brands. The same goes for the ageless and classless LOHAS market segment: again, a consistent and distinct value profile emerges that allows companies to address this target group directly.
The ideal starting-point for any customer-focused market strategy is a set of clearly differentiated, value-based customer segments. The next step is to add in traditional data on socio-demographics, purchase behavior and media use. For Germany, RB Profiler draws on a rich database in the form of the 10,000 consumer surveys carried out each year as part of the market-media study of German consumer behavior Typologie der Wünsche (“typology of desires”). This is possible because since 2007 the RB Profiler has formed part of Typologie der Wünsche under the joint label of RB Profiler/TdW cooperation.
