Trend Analysis - Post Demographic Consumerism | Mala Harish ETU20150222 | Abstract: There is a fundamental shift happening in the consumer behavior which is defying the traditional demographic expectation. People belonging to the same demographic are no longer acting in the same way or wanting the same products. Additionally people belonging to a particular demographic are found to be using products and services that were not primarily targeted at them. Consumers are not a big demographic monolith but are becoming more diverse in their needs and wants. This trend is triggered by the increased access to information, products and services, availability of wide variety of products and services and changing socio cultural norms that encourage people to experiment with products and ideas. Appreciating this trend and looking beyond demographics into the behavior and interests of consumers would help marketers to tap into new opportunities and otherwise ignored consumer segments. |
[Pick the date]
[Pick the date]

-------------------------------------------------
Trend Analysis – Post Demographic Consumerism
Introduction
“Post Demographic Consumerism” is identified as one of the consumer behavior trends for 2015 by the research agency Trend Watching. This paper attempts to study the trend with respect to the market changes in India, which is one of the biggest emerging economies.
Post Demographic Consumerism
Segmentation is the first step in marketing strategy where a broad market is divided into homogenous groups which are perceived to have similar needs and wants. The objective of segmentation is to identify homogenous groups which can be targeted with a marketing mix that would meet the group’s expectation. The different bases used for segmenting the market includes geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral. (1).
Of the various bases the most widely employed one is demographics which segments the market on demographic characteristics like age, gender, income, race, occupation, education, family size, family lifecycle, social class etc. (1). The assumption behind this segmentation being that people who share these demographic traits would want similar products and would behave in a similar manner. This was a fair enough assumption till a few years ago. But with many social and technological changes in our society this is no more the norm. The consumer behavior research agency Trend Watching has identified this fundamental shift in the way consumers behave as a trend for year 2015. Consumers are not behaving in a way dictated by their demographics and are moving away from the herd mentality into a more individualistic style. Trend Watching has termed this fundamental change as Post Demographic Consumerism. The agency defines the trend as “People-of all ages and in all markets – are constructing their own identities more freely than ever. As a result, consumption patterns are no longer defined by ‘traditional’ demographic segments such as age, gender, location, income, family status and more” (2) . The examples cited below give a peek into what this trend of breaking out of the demographic divisions mean. 1. “In the UK, women now account for the majority of video game players, and there are more gamers aged over 44 than under 18” (2). 2. “Twitter's fastest growing demographic between 2012 and 2013 was the 55-64 year age bracket, growing 79%” (2). 3. “If you look at the list of the 1,000 favourite artists for 60-year-olds and the 1,000 favourite artists for 13-year-olds, there is a 40% overlap” (2)
Why Is This Important
The examples above clearly illustrate a trend that consumers are behaving differently from their expected demographics and there are potential customers outside the targeted demographics. Overlooking this segment of consumers would mean a potential loss for companies. Hence it is important for product and service providers to find interested consumers by thinking beyond the traditional demographic lines.
Key Drivers
What makes consumers behave differently now? What are the changes that are driving this trend? The main factors contributing to this trend as identified by Trend Watching are access, permission, ability and desire. (2) 1. Access: Technological innovation and penetration of internet has enabled people across geographies and demographics to have access to the same products and services. There is a worldwide sharing of information which is transcending the traditional demographic divides and forming a global consumer. For example a person residing in a rural area can access and buy the very same products that an urban consumer can. Changes such as this blur the urban – rural divide. Similarly exposure to products and services create aspirations across demographic boundaries. 2. Permission: Societies all over the world are generally moving away from conservatism and towards liberalism. Long held societal norms and beliefs are being shed. This change can be attributed to the urbanization that is happening across the world. The migration to cities and the requirements and pressures of an urban life are changing traditional social structures and values like the family unit and gender roles. The changing structure gives people more freedom to experiment and more choices that enables them to act differently from the demographic expectation. According to JWT Intelligence, 87 per cent of BRIC millennials believe the freedom and exposure of living in the city has widened their world view (3). This gives them opportunities to construct their own identities outside of the traditions of their specific demographic. In addition to urbanization, increased role for women in the labor market, higher level of education, more movement of people across countries especially from developing to developed gives impetus to this driver. 3. Ability: There is a wide variety of products and services and combined with the ease of access people are now able to express themselves consumption; are able to personalize consumption. Availability of choice gives people a chance to experiment with products and brands that were once not usual to the demographic group they belong. 4. Desire: Money or financial wealth is no more seen as the measure of success. Experience, health, sustainability, ethics etc play a significant part in defining status. This makes the market more democratic.
The above reasons indicate that the change in the consumer behavior is caused by both external and internal influences. Technological changes, socio-cultural changes and availability of a wide variety of product constitute the external influences. The socio cultural changes are in turn enabling an internal influence with consumers wanting to be more individualistic and be able to express themselves through consumption.
How To Ride This Trend
With the reality of post demographic consumerism, market segments should be defined more by lifestyles, behaviors, activities, attitude and preferences of consumers rather than by rigid divisions of age, gender, race and income. This requires moving from demographic to psychographic segmentation as in today’s world psychographics explains a market segment better than demographics. Consumers are moving away from being part of a large herd to being members of a tribe (4)
Trend Watching has recommended few strategies for companies and brands to ride the trend and tap into the potential presented by the trend. (2)
New normal: Brands should embrace the changing realities in the socio-cultural environment and connect with the consumers. These new normal would present opportunities for new products and services. Ignoring them would necessarily mean losing out on a segment. Brand communication should also convey the celebration of the new normal so that these segments are able to identify with the brand. Ex: Facebook enabled 54 gender options for its Argentinian users.
Overhaul the brand heritage: Reimagine or turnover the brands long standing history and tradition to attract a new breed of consumers. Ex: Sotheby a high end auction house partnered with online auction platform eBay to enable consumers to bid and purchase artworks online.
Cross demographic fertilization: Global reach of internet has created a shared level of aspiration and there is a socio-cultural globalization. This makes room for many cross-generational, gender neutral,and income agnostic products and services. By transferring innovations or products from the initial demographic to another, businesses can expand the market by targeting people who would be interested in the product or service but not currently served by the business.
Focus on small niche: With consumers wanting to be more individualistic and expecting personalized services, businesses have opportunities to focus on new niche and fringe markets that weren’t previously accessible. Such opportunities could be identified by looking at the specific psychographic aspects of the members of a broader group.
India – Cultural Context
For the purpose of this paper India has been chosen as the country to study the trend of Post Demographic Consumerism. India is one of the biggest emerging markets and the social landscape in the country is changing at a very fast pace. All the major drivers for the trend like penetration of internet and innovative technology, urbanization, aspirational middle class which is increasingly traveling the world and getting exposed to different life style and easing of social norms are at play in India and makes it an ideal choice to study the trend.
Since culture is an important external influence in the consumer behavior theory it is important to understand the cultural context of a country before studying the consumer behavior changes taking place in the chosen country. Geert Hoefstede’s 6-D model is used here to get a macro view of India’s cultural context. (4)
Power Distance: Indian society is highly hierarchical with a PDI of 77. There is a clear pecking order within organizational settings as well as in family settings. Power is generally centralized and obedience is an expected trait from subordinates and juniors. Communication is top down and negative feedback is never given up the ladder. Even in social and familial set up there is a clear power relation.
Individualism: India scores 48 on this dimension indicating that it is both a collectivist as well as individualistic society. Individualistic goals are achieved through collectivist means. There is a high preference for belonging to a social group and getting acceptance of the group but still people are individually responsible for the way they lead their lives.
Masculinity: With a score of 56 on this dimension, India is regarded as a masculine society which is highly achievement oriented and driven by competition. There is a very visible display of wealth and success. Material wealth and success is deemed as important. But this is slightly reigned in by the spiritual and religious philosophy of the country.
Uncertainty Avoidance: India displays a medium low preference for uncertainty avoidance with a score of 40 indicating that people are accepting of imperfections and comfortable with ambiguity. This also means people find innovative ways to circumvent rules and get settled into established roles and routines without questioning.
Long Term Orientation: India indicates the preference for a more long term and pragmatic approach with a score of 51. Time is not seen as linear and hence there is a leeway given to lack of punctuality and changing plans.
Indulgence: With a low score of 26 on this dimension, India is a highly restrained society. There is very minimum emphasis on leisure time and delayed gratification is the norm.
But there are many changes happening within the Indian society due to technological developments, higher global exposure through media, availability of variety in products, increasing disposable income, urbanization and higher levels of education. The changes are getting reflected in gender roles becoming more fluid, higher decision making power for women in the family, emergence of nuclear family system, elderly people willing to experiment with products and lifestyles and a segment of people who are more ready to indulge than practice restraint. And all these make the trend of post demographic consumerism more meaningful to the country.
Post Demographic Consumerism in India
Product positioning and values associated to a brand are communicated through advertisement campaigns. Hence to examine how the brands in India are responding to this trend of post demographic consumerism, this paper examines the television commercials of some popular brands that have tried to address segments beyond the traditional demographics to illustrate the relevance of the trend in India.
Tanishq : Tanishq is a jewelry brand from the house of TATA a leading business conglomerate from India. Though jewelry advertisements in India traditionally focus on marriage and young brides, Tanishq looked beyond this and looked at other occasions and demographics. Their advertisements weaved stories around jewelry gifting - wedding anniversary gifting by old couples and parents –in-law gifting to daughter-in-law.

A very bold advertisement had the story around the second marriage of a mother of a 10 year old daughter. Another commercial shows a grandmother encouraging her granddaughter for a love based marriage. India has a long tradition of arranged marriage and remarriage and love based marriages are the new normal. So these campaigns embrace and celebrate the new normal in the Indian society.
Maggi : An instant noodles brand from Nestle had started off as a fast to cook tasty snack for children and later on started a healthier version of the product to become a tasty and healthy snack for kids. But with the society ready to experiment with food and lifestyle as well as the convenience provided by an instant food, Maggi has actually become a quick fix family food. So this shifting of the target demographics from kids to families including grandparents is captured in one of the recent noodle ads. Here the entire family spanning three generations are shown to relish this snack. It tries to convey that demographics does not rule the taste buds.

Ariel Detergent: India being a masculine society has traditionally had clearly defined gender roles with the household duties being the responsibility of the woman. Ariel detergent from P&G aired an advertisement questioning this notion with the tag “Is Laundry Only A Woman’s Job”. The ad shows two elderly women talking about the changes in the status and life of a woman over the last few decades. Through this advertisement Ariel tries to connect to the changing familial structure and roles.
OLX.com: OLX is an Argentinian online classifieds marketplace for buying and selling used goods. OLX launched a series of ad with the theme “womaniya”. The ads showcased the increased freedom and decision making roles enjoyed by women in India today enabled by technology. The commercial shows a housewife instead of the expected demographic of a working woman professional using their services through a smart phone when the husband is shown as reluctant to make some household purchase. This again targets a demographics which would not be traditionally considered as part of an online marketplace service provider.
Electronic gadgets like laptops, tablets, smartphones etc are areas where this trend is very much visible. With families spreading across geographies, more and more elderly people are getting technologically savvy in order to keep in touch with their near and dear ones as well as for their own entertainment. Nuclear family system leaves many of the older generation people with enough time for themselves and this encourages them to experiment with and experience lifestyles including overseas vacations and recreational activities which were never considered a part of the demographics they belong to. India as a market presents good opportunities for businesses who are able to think of these new lifestyle changes and role changes in the Indian society while designing their marketing mix.

Conclusion
It should not be concluded that demographic segmentation is totally irrelevant. Along with the traditional approach it is important to take into consideration the attitude of customers towards products and ideas. Its about using behavior or psychographics as a segmentation tool rather than relying entirely on demographics. Though young people would remain the first adopters of innovations, the adoption rate among the older population is increasing. Hence products shouldn’t just stick with the initial demographics but move beyond. Demographic segmentation offers a “spray and pray” (4) approach. But when today’s consumers do not want to be identified with a herd and are keen to be individualist, marketers should approach them on the basis of the interest and intent of the consumers rather than based on age, income and marital status.
Bibliography
1. NetMBA. Market Segmentation. NetMBA.com. [Online] [Cited: 12 04, 2015.] http://www.netmba.com/marketing/market/segmentation/.
2. trendwatching. NOVEMBER 2014 TREND BRIEFING - POST-DEMOGRAPHIC CONSUMERISM. trendwatching.com. [Online] November 2014. [Cited: 12 04, 2015.] http://trendwatching.com/trends/post-demographic-consumerism/.
3. Leisure Management. Breaking the mould. leisuremanagement. [Online] 2015. [Cited: 12 04, 2015.] http://www.leisuremanagement.co.uk/detail.cfm?pagetype=featuresonline&featureid=30149&mag=Leisure%20Management&linktype=story&source=none&ref=n.
4. 4imprint.Blue Papers. Post-Demographic Consumerism. info.4imprint.com. [Online] 10 13, 2015. [Cited: 12 04, 2015.] http://info.4imprint.com/blue-paper/post-demographic-consumerism/.
5. The Hoefstede Centre. India - Geert Hoefstede. geert-hoefstede.com. [Online] [Cited: 12 04, 2015.] http://geert-hofstede.com/india.html.
6. Belan, Kate. Four newest post-demographic trends versus conventional demographic models. popsop.com. [Online] 11 05, 2014. [Cited: 12 04, 2015.] http://popsop.com/2014/11/four-newest-post-demographic-trends-vs-conventional-demographic-models/.

--------------------------------------------
[ 1 ]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P76E6b7SQs8
[ 2 ]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5A4zWJ2czM
[ 3 ]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9kBpea9As
[ 4 ]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9w0_4M8bPs
[ 5 ]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEHjCYQCS4k