Market Segment Insights for beginners

The Great and the Good of the Interactive world have got together for the AD:TECH conference in San Francisco.

One of the session was entitled "Market Segment Insights", when three industry experts shared insights specific to the demographic, psychographic and behavioural make up of four generations: Gen Y, Gen X, Baby Boomers and Seniors.

This I thought was going to be worth reading. Maybe the reporting of this session was particularly brief and missed out the guru’s words of wisdom but I have to say I was underwhelmed. A couple of the quotes:

An analysis from Nielsen//Netratings stressed the over 55 crowd should not be ignored by online marketers citing increased usage of broadband, a 25 percent increased likelihood over average household of computer purchase, 25 percent increased likelihood of music CD purchase and 15 percent increased likelihood of book purchase. Yes, yes, yes this is all good stuff but surely everybody already knows this already??

The Director of Research from Veritas reminded the audience Baby Boomers are the country's biggest spenders and look for quality products that help define the generation's focus on itself. He cited the group's love of all forms of media from television to radio to billboards to the Internet and recommended marketers are sensitive to the generation's appreciation of value and sensitivity to price. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with these comments, but this is all well understood stuff.

Maybe the event improved after the reporter left? Dick Stroud www.20plus30.com