Using demographics remains a valuable activity for many marketers and brands - so says Mark Ritson.

I always find reading Mark Ritson in Marketing Week amusing and informative. He is especially funny when talking about social media. This week he was looking at the demise of demographics.

He clearly can see the weakness of just taking a simplistic age segmentation of the market but equally ignoring demographics entirely is idiocy. I totally agree.

The one aspect that he did not mention (and he should) was the need to take account of demographics when designing and managing the customer experience.

Sure a 30 year old can have exactly the same outlook and brand intentions as a 70 year old  - unlikely but possible - but there is a massive difference between the way the older person's senses, body and mind will be working compared to the younger individual. This is important but so often ignored.

So of course demographics is important. Dick Stroud