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This article investigates the effectiveness of demographic and psychographic variables in explaining consumer behavior across over 50 non-durable product categories. Using data from the Simmons Study of Media and Markets (SMM), the authors examine five sets of covariates comprising demographic and psychographic variables commonly used to segment consumer markets. The study assessed the ability of these variables to predict product use, brand use, usage frequency, and relative brand preference.

The study found that these covariates predict usage of the product category, but are not predictive of brand preference or usage. These findings support Fennell’s previous work and her claims that individual characteristics – particularly demographics – are not effective variables for market segmentation. Markets do not consist of individuals but of occasions in which consumers make purchase decisions. 

Key Points and Findings

• Demographic and psychographic      variables can predict product category use and, to a lesser extent, usage      frequency.
• These variables fail to explain      consumers’ relative brand preference within product categories. That is,      while they can indicate who uses a type of product, they cannot reliably      predict which brand among several a consumer will prefer. This requires      knowledge of the particular usage occasion as experienced by the consumer.
• The study shows that general      descriptors (like age, lifestyle, opinions) are too broad to capture the      specific motivations that drive brand choice.
• The authors argue for using      context-specific, motivating conditions as basis variables—factors that      reflect consumers’ needs in specific product-use situations.
• They caution against the widespread      use of segmentation models that rely solely on general descriptors,      advocating instead for models grounded in situational and activity-based      determinants of choice.

This article argues that engaging the attention of prospects when advertising has not received sufficient attention in marketing research or by practitioners. It points out that consumer science typically only becomes involved after content is created. To enable further involvement of marketing science in the process of actively engaging attention, the author presents a motivation framework and links the different classes of motivation to different forms of attention engagement. This article employs the conceptual framework from the author’s 1978 article “Consumers’ Perceptions of the Product-Use Situation.”

Key contributions:

• Discusses conceptual issues concerning how and why consumers attend to marketing content
• Links forms of attention engagement to different classes of motivation
• Provides strategies for effectively engaging the attention of target members of an audience

This study provides empirical support for Fennell’s (1978) unique concept of consumer decision-making. It presents a novel model for understanding variations in consumer brand preferences by accounting for both the objective environment (e.g., where and with whom a product is consumed) and motivating conditions (e.g., thirst, social desire, mood). Conventional segmentation techniques typically presume uniform motivations within a specific context. However, this paper disputes that presumption by illustrating substantial variability both within the same individuals across different environments and within the same environments across different individuals.

The authors employ a hierarchical Bayesian model using data from 842 beer consumers across multiple environments. By combining partial brand rankings and detailed trade-off data, they estimate brand preferences and relate them to individual motivations and product attributes.

The findings reveal that motivating conditions within an occasion offer a more precise explanation for brand preferences than environmental or demographic factors alone. This implies that marketers should focus on person-activity occasions - each unique interaction between a consumer, an environment, and their current motivation - rather than relying solely on broader demographic or situational segments.

Key contributions:

• Brand preferences are not fixed:      They vary not only across individuals but also within the same person      depending on the situation and motivation.
• Three levels of influence on      preference:
  1. Individual characteristics
  2. Objective environments      (e.g., drinking at home vs. at a party)
  3. Motivating conditions      (e.g., wanting to relax or fit in)

• Motivating conditions     are a better predictor of brand and attribute preferences than the      environment alone.
• Heterogeneous motivations     can exist within the same environment (e.g., not everyone drinks at a      party for the same reason).