Who do you target for advertising and why?

The difference between demographic and psychographic variables matters. Here’s why:

It’s pretty common to hear a client ask us for demographic targets after we give them a thorough presentation of a survey we just conducted. After spending an hour exploring the nuances of opinions in great depth it can feel like a waste as it sounds like everything we said turned out to be unusable.

It’s natural, and I get it. Advertisers primarily need demographic targets (age, gender, geography, etc.). Targeting opinions (those psychographics) is harder to do, though digital platforms are expanding those capabilities.

But you still need to look at those psychographic variables because they tell us what actually drives decisions and behavior. Let me give you a couple of examples:

In a survey about saving for college we found that fear was a driving factor behind parents’ financial decisions. Those who were pessimistic about paying for their kids’ education tended to save less.

In another survey we found that a person’s views about environmentalism was a strong predictor of their support or opposition for new road construction.

These psychographic variables reveal underlying beliefs that make sense of the responses people give. And, in general, they do a better job of predicting opinions than demographics.

So here’s the dilemma: the demographics tell us who but the psychographics explain why. The latter shows you how to persuade voters and consumers but that message has to be communicated under the constraints of the former.

People aren’t just their demographic category. They are shaped by their deeply held convictions. It takes a creative mind to understand how those two kinds of variables move simultaneously and develop an effective ad campaign.