How Consumers’ Subjective Worldviews Have Changed Rules of Marketing Communications

The old saw, “there’s safety in numbers,” says a lot about the strategic role of objectively biased worldviews (see previous three posts) in younger consumers’ behavior. Going along with the “herd” is safer than taking an independent path.

Rejection by the “herd” can be painful and leave a young person without a critical source of behavior cues. Thus young people’s buying behavior tends to reflect compliance with the “herd’s” code.

As midlife approaches, the “herd mentality” usually begins dissolving. People tend to be more introspective and autonomous in making buying decisions. This increases their resistance to marketing.

Older consumers’ more inner focused decision processes pose challenges to marketers who are more accustomed to pitching to the objectively biased minds of younger consumers that favor direct, unambiguous marketing statements. Brain scans in fact have shown that younger minds struggle more with clarifying ambiguity than older minds generally do.

In fact, older minds are more quickly repelled by black-and-white marketing claims. The ambiguity implicit in saying something “could be” or “perhaps is” is less likely to challenge the older person’s need for feeling independent in making decisions about the worth and meaning of what a marketer says.

One of the biggest differences between younger and older consumers in how they make buying decisions can be boiled down to the fact that younger consumers want to be told what something is worth and means while older consumers are more like to make that determination for themselves.

In short, there are crucial differences in language style preferences between younger and older consumers, with the former preferring directness and the latter preferring a hedged or conditional language style.

Tomorrow: The Art of Conditional Positioning

Comments

[Scott]

Not only will marketing like you are in atnhoer country hurt you, it can kill you. Where we live in SE Asia, its amazing when we see things exported right out of the USA and dropped here. Sometimes it translates fine (i.e. the Big Mac) and sometimes it gives exactly the wrong conclusion (thus Burger King sells beef burgers in Muslim countries and NOT hamburgers ). This week on CNN out of Hong Kong I heard the reporter talk about the new Sands hotel wanting to make Macau the Sin City of Asia. I know what she means because as an American I know that Sin City is just a nickname for Las Vegas but my neighbors would never entertain visiting a place that brags about being full of sin.By all means do business out of your country. Just make sure you cross the culture first or you may find yourself sticking out your hand to a lady who is just staring at you and not offering hers in return.