Instead of assuming attitudes from demographics, marketers must simply ask consumers about their behaviour and preferences.
Brands must acknowledge that gender is a spectrum beyond the dichotomy of male and female. Marketers must ensure they ask their audiences what their gender is and how they identify themselves. This is imperative for brands today, given that people today are demanding greater diversity and accurate representation.
Segmenting audiences using standard demographics based on race, ethnicity, age, or gender can help brands simplify the market. While such segmentation enables businesses to reach and influence large numbers of people based on shared characteristics, it does not reflect every individual.
Categorisation often uses stereotypes, which have a potential negative social impact, but they overlook more relevant and valuable ways of market segmentation. For instance, research on beauty products mainly focuses on women. Instead, beauty brands would benefit far more by identifying customers who spend beyond a threshold on beauty products every month.
[3 minute read]
