Goodbye to demographics

One of the lead articles on the WARC web site is by the editor-in-chief of MediaPost with the title of this blog posting. I quote

My prediction is that 2008 will be a year in which the advertising and media industries finally challenge the role of demographics as the primary method of targeting consumers with media. It is a challenge that is long overdue. Demographics are crude surrogates at best for who a brand's consumers actually are, how they think, behave and, most importantly, how likely they are to actually purchase a product.

I normally say that: “age is a poor proxy for behaviour.” I think I will add the phrase “Demographics are crude surrogates for who a brand's consumers are, how they think and behave”. Take your choice. As long as you get the message.

Sorry, WARC’s site is subscription only; otherwise I would have provided more of the article.

I like the accompanying image. Dick Stroud