databasics; Head Trips - Yankelovich Partners Inc.'s consumer behavior tool

American Demographics, Oct, 2000

Three of the eight main groups created by Mindbase are predominant among Generation Xers: Up and Comers, Young Materialists, and Stressed by Life. Boomers comprise the New Traditionalist, Family Limited, and Detached Introvert segments. The Renaissance Elders and Retired From Life groups constitutes the elderly population. Mindbase distinguishes many important psychographic differences among the groups (see chart for in-depth segment descriptions).

Understanding these mindset segments can be very helpful in crafting the creative in advertising, direct mail, and other targeted marketing material. For example, a cross-selling opportunity for a financial-services product can be improved by understanding the type of message each recipient will best respond to. "While saving for college is considered an obligation for the Family Limited segment, it's more of a pleasurable reward for having successful kids for those in the New Traditionalist segment," says Smith. "This obviously would affect how you should market an educational investment product."

One of the key attributes of Mindbase is its ability to use third-party data, from providers such as Acxiom or Experian, to glean which Mindbase segment each customer in a client database falls into. For example, one Yankelovich client who tested Mindbase earlier this year was a regional bank, which was introducing of a new set of investment products. After overlaying a set of third-party data onto the bank's client list, Yankelovich used that information to categorize each client into a Mindbase segment. It found two prime targets for the mailing: New Traditionalists and Detached Introverts.

Both groups had frequent bank interactions and above-average transaction values. Taking into account their Mindbase characteristics, New Traditionalists were targeted with a message emphasizing the presence of local experts who could manage the investments of busy customers. Meanwhile, Detached Introverts received a message highlighting the ability to access balances and manage transactions via computer. The test found that using this targeted messaging resulted in a 2 to 4 times better response rate than a control sample of random bank customers with similar transaction activity, depending on the creative material used in the mailing.

According to Kirk Boothe, a principal at IBM's Business Intelligence Financial Solutions unit, "Ten percent of a bank's customers provide 120 percent of their profits." Finding this group by data mining and segmentation is critical. "In the near future, every business will be a database business," predicts Smith. "This was a trend anyway, but it has only been intensified by the Internet," where every business can be conducted on a national or global scale.

Internet businesses are marketing to consumers they have little or no first-hand knowledge of, and customer intelligence is vital to understanding their needs and desires. Consumers who are subject to an increasing number of marketing messages every day, will filter out any messages that do not appeal to their basic attitudes and mindsets. Understanding not only past purchase behavior, but the values and self-perception of your target consumer, could be an essential aspect of capturing their attention and disposable dollar.