Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Week 5 - Understanding & Segmenting Your Audiences I

KEY CONCEPTS
- Segmentation
- Two Steps
- Demographic
- Psychographic
- Geographic
- Behavioral

18 comments:

kdh said...

These days one of my favorite things to do is read the (lately very good!) news about Obama on the New York Times website. So, needless to say, that's what I did right when I got home tonight (after checking some celebrity gossip blogs of course). However, I noticed that after our lesson on segmentation today, I couldn't read the front page article the same way I would have yesterday. The article (see here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/politics/19cnd-campaign.html?hp) discusses Obama's win of Wisconsin today. But probably 70% of the article talks about the demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics of the voters. The take home message: Obama has cut into some of the population segments formerly going to Clinton. Clearly Obama's campaign is doing something right. We--as public health folks--ought to take a page from his strategy book!

Katie said...

Doing the break up in class was helpful for me to visualize how to reach the specific demographics or group that you need to target, through breaking people into segments and then connecting them through their homogenious characteristics. Politics is very good in doing that because they need to know what they should say to whom, and I never considered it. I still feel that the political parties should always have the same message and agrue the same issues and points but now I understand more how they need to cater to their population that they are addressing at that moment. I always thought it was a little dishonest, but now I see that it is just great planning and a lot of research on that specific population they are addressing at that time.

ANNE AUDET said...

THis is only the third time to try this so hopefully I won't waste any more time. Really enjoyed the lab and real world segmentation ideas. THe projects were well done and real world, professional and interesting. It's nice to know there is more to life than demographics and geographics. I would like to learn more about psychographics and behavioral issues in segmentation. I am sure the topic can be discussed for a whole semester. To say the least, this class is my favority--is it because we have a take-home midterm. Hmmm! Seriously, enjoying learning without the memorization and stress.

Dania BC said...

I too agree that this is the best class yet!! Even my husband who hears me talk about my project and course discussions thinks this is a really interesting class. So kudos to the course for actually getting him to listen to me when I go on about what I learned today. The segmentation by sushi was a great way to visual each element of segmentation. After reading the article on segmentation in the reader the concept still wasn't very clear. But actually trying to segment our class and then come up with on the spot interventions really made it clear! The best part was taking it to that second step and coming up with possible campaign messages and interventions. It really puts theory into practice, and there is no better learning than that. On another note I took the VALS survey and found that it was totally way off on one of my traits and totally correct on the secondary trait. Which made me wonder how accurate is this test and similar profiling tests?

Carmen said...

I agree with two other comments posted previously, first this is bar far the coolest class ever, even beats out the psychology of sexuality where we had some very interesting panels come and talk with us. Second, I agree the reading was complex, a little bland, and dry. I really struggle with retaining information if what I am reading is not of interest; however the sushi lab was reassuring and put what I read in real practice, hands on learning. In our everyday life’s with out really knowing it we are segmenting our audience. For instance I segment my audience by the friends I choose most of my friends have college degrees, value education, share the same morals, values, and ethics; we share the same interest, and are people that I can relate to. Most of my friends are the same gender as myself, within the same age range, and almost all treasure their health and or live a healthy and active lifestyle.

Dr. E has the coolest office ever!

Smilin Jack said...

Wait until you turn 50. I did so last year and fell into what seems to be an extremely targeted SEGMENT of our society. It seems the demographic for this over 50 crowd is hairless needs a date and is have problems with sexual performance.My Email box although filtered through NORTON security still lets tons of this stuff through telling me someone has done their formative research and knows us old 50 year olds have this security system and can get around it. I also realized my Email address set me up for this, it is JW5457 well thats my birthday. I handed them a very easy shot in the dark. WE did segmentation while looking into each others eyes. These folks are trying to sell me stuff just knowing I am 50 and on the web. I knew they could do this before PH663 but rarely recognized it as segmentation. Kinda cool.

Amanda Moore said...

A picture is worth a thousand words. But, unfortunately, I can't load a picture in this comment, so you'll have to check out the photo in the link provided. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clinton14feb14,1,5279975.story?track=rss To explain the picture to all those who aren't boxing fans, last Saturday a big fight took place between Kelly Pavlik and Jermain Taylor. Kelly Pavlik is from Ohio. Hillary wanted to make a connection between the audience by showing support for Pavlik (the undefeated champion) hence the boxing gloves and just as Pavlik would win the fight against Taylor, Hillary implies she will do the same with Ohio's help. Yet, with only less than a couple of a weeks away from the Ohio primary, a knock out remains to be seen. But, what I took away from this was just how segmented an audience can be. I mean, just because they're all Democrats doesn't mean they all see things the same way. There's segmentation even in party lines. This is obvious in politics, but it's better illustrated when we pay closer attention to this year's election and evaluate how the Democrat. audience is segmented: working class, union labor, middle class, southwest, northeast, experience, change, boxing fans, non-boxing fans and then there's always race, ethnicity, age, and gender. But, I think the more challenging part to the whole segmentation thing is getting below the surface - understanding the psychographics and behavior of your target audience which presents different challenges depending on your available resources. While last week's readings may not have met everyone's expectations, I think the next reading on how to reach the "hard to reach" is insightful. Let me know what you think.

LisaE said...

Before this class I would always notice the way that the commercials changed depending on what TV show you were watching and what time of day it was. I understood that companies didn’t want to waste there time (and $$$$$$$$$) advertising Viagra during Oprah, however, I never realized how essential audience segmentation is. It really is the foundation for the entire campaign and the lab really showed that. By segmenting an audience effectively you save money, time and energy that can be then spent on the campaign. Knowing how to segment is the key. It amazed me in the lab the way that the same health campaign took on so many different tones solely depending on how the group was segmented. When the group first segmented by gender, the difference in the campaigns made me laugh and think of my life and the way I pay attention to things that are female oriented (touchy feely) and totally ignore ads that are male oriented (cars and underdressed women). Then for the past day or so I have been paying attention to the ‘female’ ads and noticed how they definitely deal more with increasing my self esteem (generally by increasing my attractiveness). This is opposed to ‘male’ messages which are all about being “macho.” However, the one thing I did notice that caught both my attention and my boyfriend’s attention (regardless of masculine or feminine orientation) was humor. Funny commercials shut both of us up and we pay attention. I am really excited to see how this knowledge of segmentation is going to affect our class project. Because we are going to target both men and women, it will be interesting to see how our final product manages to do that. I am sure we will know so much more once we conduct our focus groups!

One other thing, I have been continuing to have my open face and smiling and anyone who looks at me and I am still noticing how it is really affecting (in a good way) my mood throughout the day.

Anonymous said...

This week class was eye opening for me. It made me pay attention to how much of an impact audience segmentation plays in politics, advertisement, health campaigns, etc. We can see it right now with the democratic campaigns. Hilary and Obama are each focusing on certain demographics, regions, values, beliefs in order to get that groups vote. Segmenting an audience may help a campaign in regards to reaching a specific group, but it may also lead to contradictory messages presented to the public. In particular, audience segmentation may lead to conflicting audiences in relation to the type of campaigns to be used for the public. For example, in Uganda there is a discord between those who want to use abstinence only campaign for HIV prevention and others who want to promote condom use. This conflict has lead to confusion within the population in regards to what message they should follow. In Uganda the health promoters and educators have their own beliefs and values about what is the best way to prevent HIV in their population. However, is seems that they are trying to manipulate their HIV/AIDS campaign based on what they perceive as the right path while ignoring the target audience attitudes and beliefs. This video clip shows how the politics and beliefs of those who are designing a campaign can influence how the audience is separated.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2007/07/uganda_the_cond.html#

Emily A said...

Keeping up with the campaign discussion, and to add to kdh's comment.... We were all victims of being a "target audience" (if you were watching television) the other evening when Hillary Clinton took the stage to deliver a speech that was very important to her campaign in Texas. Barack Obama was also planning to speak, but his camp decided to bide their time. At 7:15pm, Hillary took the stage. All of her supporters tuned into their televisions and were honored with her vocal and political presence... for about 6 minutes. Barack Obama, with all of his momentum, chose this moment to make his speech and the news stations responded. Every station in the United States switched their coverage from Hillary's pep rally in Texas to Obama's speech regarding his win in Hawaii and Wisconsin. Everyone listening was forced to hear him speak, at least for a little while. He used timing and was able to reach his target audience AS WELL AS Hillary's. Brilliant!

Sareh said...

The class exercise was very helpful in understanding segmentation. Separating the groups based on differences makes it easier to target a specific population for campaign purposes. I haven't had the chance to listen to politics lately but from what I read on the class blog, I agree how the candidates tailor their campaigns to specific groups based on demographics, geographic, etc. Now, learning and knowing about segmentation is going to help me further in understanding this aspect of politic better.

rebeca said...

Our segmentation activity in class(or outside of class) made me think about what questions to ask in order to address the issues that are relevant to developing our health campaign; Also, I liked that we role played on how to ask questions so people are willing to give candid answers(Im recalling the "why?" question given to our group that did not exercise daily which could potentially get a defensive answer). Its also important to have a feel for the audiences perception of what is being asked. Exercise in our activity could mean different things to different people as could a variety of things.
I watched the Obama/Clinton Texas debate and the analytical view of the debate that continued after it was finished. They described how the candidates set the tone according to what they felt the audience would respond to,what worked and what did not, and how they molded their stories that they felt was successful in the past. Im sure the script writers for these candidates spent a lot of time analyzing the same population segments we discussed in class.
As I was watching the debate, it was hard to just listen to the candidates. Instead I ended up checking out how their faces changed with what they were saying, their body language, and how they took little stabs at each other and felt out for the audiences response. Oh well for passive TV watching, but I do realize it helps me prepare and start thinking about questions to ask our upcoming project audience.

Jellybean said...

Hmmm...everyone is talking about the election, I haven't been really keeping up with it at all. Is that a bad thing? Well, this website lists the republicans and democrats viewa about healthcare within the US. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.healthcare.html Everyone else agrees on universal health coverage except for Ron Paul, what the heck? However, they all say this, but will it really happen? They are segmenting thier audience through the do not want universal health insurance and the do wants. Would it be fair though? Everyone wants health insurance, the issue is who will provide it and who won't. The target audience therefore would be those who are willing to pay and those who are not.

valerie said...

Soon after class I heard a very similar news story to the one kdh mentioned, about Obama cutting into various segments of Clinton's projected supporters. I thought it was interesting to immediately see an example of audience segmentation at work in the world. Hearing this story and reflecting on the segmentation exercise we did in class this week, made me realize that, just like the other steps to effective communication, there is a lot of work that needs to go into audience segmentation. With many different ways to segment people, you need to decide what will be the best way of segmenting your target audience. And as evidenced by the political happenings, its hard to get it right--even powerful people with lots of money and staff to do the formative and audience research for them, can quickly lose parts of their target audience to direct competitors. That means we public healthers, with limited grant funding, really need to hone our skills to reach those audiences that we want to hear our message.

dalilab said...

Segmentation. At face value, it seems so easy: use what we know about people to make a campaign that's tailored to their specific wants & needs and then make sure it gets to them wherever they may be... But things certainly get more interesting and more complicated as all the ways people are different (and the same) are considered. Geographic, demographic, psychographic...they are just a few factors that come into play, not to mention the interactions of all these factors that create even more variables to consider. It's not so easy after all, but successful campaigns will attest, it's well worth it!

hugo said...

The exercise out in "the office" was so helpful!. Dalila says it best: "It seems so easy" Although once yo consider all the possible characteristics of your target audience, it wstarts to get more interesting. I've been having the chance to apply a lot of what I'm learning in class in real world project targeting families in three different cities in the Imperial Valley. Just coming up with a name for the project involves this type of critical thinking strategies and revealing exercises. Cool!

CaseyMc said...

The exercise in class was really helpful in learning the different ways an audience can be segmented and all the issues to consider. This class has demonstrated how important it is to do formative research before starting a health campaign, as there are so many aspects of the target audience to address and attempt to understand. We are lucky to be taking this class during an exciting time in politics, with such a big election coming up. I have found myself being more attuned to the different populations targeted by the candidates and the strategies that Obama and Clinton are using to tailor their messages. Obama has a lot of support from younger voters and is said to have a "rock star" appeal. Last week I posted a YouTube video on my blog that captures that rock star appeal. The video highlights an inspiring speech by Obama and is accompanied by various celebrities as they sing his powerful words, "yes we can." Check it out at http://kc4health.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

Segmentation seems to be a very tedious process to accomplish. There were times during the segmentation process that I wanted to change the interviewee’s answer to help that individual fit in a group that I thought was a better fit. I know that this would totally disregard the point of the segmentation process. We may at times want to include people in a cookie-cut-out that best suits our needs. Then we realize that we have to keep to the standards set by our research.