To be successful in future, brands will need to ditch long-held and generic demographic segmentation labels, such as ‘millennials’, and instead focus on needs-based communities and on how they can anticipate changes in the emotional needs of their target audience.
Writing for WARC, Richard McLeod of Netfluential cites the insights consultancy’s own research, conducted amongst 10,000 UK respondents, to argue that the fastest-growing brands are those that “can re-engineer products, experiences and communications to meet those needs more effectively than competitors”.
Growth is only one of six core values (the others being certainty, significance, variety, contribution and love), each with a set of underlying emotional needs that drive instinctive decision making, he says.
But this particular value (characterised by the needs for learning, ambition, meeting goals and overcoming difficulties) “is rising in importance, particularly with young adults”. (For more, read WARC’s report: How customer-centricity is driving brand growth for Netflix, Deliveroo and more.)
“Within growth, the underlying need to learn and discover new things has emerged as the most important emotional impulse driving the decision making of young adults today,” he states.
An exemplar of this, he suggests, is Deliveroo, which, by offering content that inspires people to try new things – with website features such “our picks” and “healthy options” – is able to deepen its relationship with customers.
“Whilst its competitors provide access and choice, Deliveroo is becoming the destination for people who don’t yet know what to choose and need inspiration and guidance,” McLeod notes.
Consequently, Deliveroo is already ahead of better-known rival Just Eat, as well as established restaurant brand McDonald’s, in responding to the rising emotional need amongst young adults for learning and discovery (a key dimension within Growth).
In Netfluential’s research, 35% of people strongly agreed that Deliveroo is “helping people to learn and discover new things”, compared to 26% for Just Eat and 20% for McDonald’s.
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This article first appeared in www.warc.com
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