When consumer data can give you the wrong answers
I was talking to one of my neighbours yesterday on her way to return some jeans she recently bought online. She had them in her trolley when I bumped into her at the corner of our road.
“I am active - but at my own pace. I am 81 - I still walk to the shops every day, admittedly I go very slowly but I can still move. Just this week I have had text messages offering me food to be delivered and a courier service to pick up any clothes I want to return that I have ordered online. How dare they! Do you think I want to buy things from a brand that is actively trying to stop me being active?
They assume just because I am of a certain age and that I might have slowed down physically that I want to just sit in my chair all day. They are taking away my independence and treating me like a complete lazy invalid. I want to buy from brands that enable me not disable me”
Fair point.
What she was describing was an example of a combination of inaccurate data, irrelevant data and incorrect data interpretation. A lethal combination that afflicts many brands audience insights.
For example, it has been evidenced that most physical trackers (wrist, waist etc) are not capturing reliable data with the older adult population and can perpetuate ‘sedentary’ myths about the needs and behaviour of that particular group. Gardening, cleaning, hoovering, walking or climbing steps (but at a slow speed) etc can often go undetected by these devices - leading brands to either try to engage these consumers on promising to help them be more ‘physically’ active or make their supposed ‘sedentary’ lifestyles more fun.
Both strategies we have seen misfire and can actually create indignation to the guilty ‘brand’. This is obviously not good for your brand relevancy or even advocacy (older parents will moan to their families - who might get irritated with the brand for treating their loved one like a chair bound carcass). Thats two or three generations lost.
Looking at this from a psychological perspective at IB we shed light on a different consumer lifestyle. These consumers do not need brands to make them move more or more quickly rather they are seeking support around their psychological perceptions that they are still active. Other older adults need support in terms of their own perceptions of being a risk/burden to their social/family network. They tend to stay indoors as they feel there is no risk of them 'having an accident outside’ - a perception that is actually reinforced both by the media and by many brand ‘attitudes’ to older adults.
Examining your customer data with a psychological lens can both stop you making glaring errors in your customer engagement but also surface hidden points of brand engagement that are relevant and will resonate with the hidden emotional needs of your audiences.
(https://lnkd.in/eeFzezhu)
by Dr Simon Moore