[Sigia-l] Re: audience analysis and demographics

[Ziya Oz]

"PeterV" wrote:

> ...Claire Rowland says traditional demographics are usually not a very useful
> way to split up your target audience, and I tend to agree.
 
'Traditional demographics' means essentially nothing. The advertising
industry has been re-re-re-defining this every other year for as long as I
can remember. It's a voodoo 'science' of the first order. There are tons of
books on demographic segmentation of just about any population by just about
any real or unimaginable criteria you'd care to come up with. If you want to
see some really creative demographic labels (like 'lethargic early
adopters') grab one of these books and a favorite beverage. It's about as
enjoyable as reading one of the 'business strategy' books of the month.
Really, if you have the time, peruse through some of the dotcom era
'research' done by Jupiter and the like on, say, likely adoption rates of
new technologies/services among different demographic groups...and laugh.
Sure hindsight is perfect, but these people actually get paid for this crap.

Best,

Ziya