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Determining the target audience
Defining your target audience is an important step when creating a brand platform. The target audience represents the group of people with whom the brand seeks to establish an emotional and functional connection. Accurately defining target audience portraits helps a brand better understand its consumers and adapt its communications to them. Today there are many methods for describing and segmenting audiences, but we will talk about the Psychea technique, based on the works of Carl Jung.
The Psychea model in branding. Psychotypes.
At the heart of brand development is an understanding of how our perceptions and thoughts function. In our work, we use the “Psychea” structural-dynamic profiling model. The idea of the model is that society can be divided into four psychotypes: Hedonists, Independents, Traditionalists and Aesthetes. Each of these psychotypes differs from the other in its basic values and needs, which influence the choice of a particular brand. As a result, for each group we can create our own design and style of communication, which will more clearly fit the lifestyle and thinking of the current consumer. For example, consumers of healthy breakfasts and yoga will clearly be different from lovers of rock concerts and beer. Therefore, for these two categories of consumers it will be necessary to apply completely different approaches to the design of communication materials: website, print or media advertising.
Key characteristics of psychotypes
Hedonists (yellow)
Key needs: novelty, status, pleasure.
Manner of perception: situational, depends on the environment.
How he comprehends: impulsively, superficially, without structure, emotionally.
How he makes decisions: impulsively, demonstratively.
These are lovers of everything new, bright impressions, always in pursuit of fashion and trends. They want to be “the very best” - the first, fashionable, bright. They follow new trends and stand in line for new products. They are impulsive, live by emotions, by the moment. For Hedonists, status and achievements are important. They never stand still, they love to try new things, they look for new places. Whether it's a new brand, product or service, the first people to become interested are the Hedonists. It is through them that the world will learn about the new product (if it is something worthwhile) - they will enthusiastically tell their friends about it.
Hedonists are emotional, impulsive individuals who do not always act logically. They are constantly faced with many new products and trends, so interesting solutions in brand advertising are for them!
Independents (blue)
Key needs: strategy, goal achievement, individuality, control, power.
Manner of perception: own opinion, understanding through the inner world.
How it comprehends: logically, clearly, holistically, with an understanding of the goal.
How he makes decisions: balanced, meaningful, consistent.
Purposeful individuals whose views do not depend on fashion and the opinions of others. Products value quality and practicality. Most often, these are people with high incomes who have themselves reached the top or are just in the process of doing so. The main thing in their life is achieving goals and controlling circumstances. They do not chase new products; they prefer products that have been tested by time and fashion. When choosing a product, an Independent is guided by logic, his experience, and not emotions. The product must correspond to the status and solve the task.
Aesthetes (green/light green)
Key needs: belonging, security, love, unification, care, world peace.
Manner of perception: sensuality, intuition.
How it comprehends: in general categories, without a rigid structure.
How he makes decisions: according to the situation, avoiding responsibility.
Subtle natures, passionate about beauty, comfort and self-development. A cozy home, family, pleasant life and spending time with loved ones - this is about them. Often they are entrusted with organizational work for some creative event - a corporate event, a competition, and so on. More emotional than Independents. Decisions are based more on feelings. This audience is very attached to the comfort zone that they create from beautiful images. Aesthetes will not do anything that will destroy their cozy world. Hence the main insight, the trigger, in communication with them: you need to push their desire to protect this comfort zone.
Traditionalists (red)
Key needs: stability, accumulation, retention, predictability.
Manner of perception: facts, ritualization, adherence to the opinion of society.
How he comprehends: pseudo-logic, denial, doubt, stuckness.
How he makes a decision: reluctantly, with an eye to social norms and social confirmation.
If something unusual, unexpected or new happens (price increases, moving, fire), they may become confused and panic. Therefore, rules are important to them, even if they somewhat restrict freedom of action. A traditionalist will check the price, reviews, ingredients a hundred times before choosing something. Shockingness is not about them. However, they don’t want to look backward and unfashionable; on the contrary, they are simply not ready to spend a lot of money on it. The main thing is that the thing looks decent, but the quality may not reach the “elite”. Facts (even unconfirmed ones) help make purchasing decisions. Even if fashion sites say that this style is in trend, they will not switch to it until 7 out of 10 people they know start sticking to the same style.
Example with the Armani Exchange brand
T-shirts from this brand are not premium when it comes to quality, but their distinctive feature is their large logos. However, they cannot be called cheap. If you follow the basic/superficial principles of audience segmentation by psychotype, these T-shirts are for Independents. In fact, they are most likely for Traditionalists who want to appear Independent due to this product. Independents do not chase brand status; they are status and a brand in themselves, which many want to emulate. This category of audience will most likely choose T-shirts from the same brand, for example, Armani or Dolce, which will be of high quality, interesting design, unusual model, and the logo will be present in such a way that it will not be easy to see. That is, by using large and eye-catching logos in their wardrobe, Traditionalists satisfy their need for adherence to generally popular markers of wealth.
Conclusion
The type of communication will depend on which segment the target audience belongs to.
For the green vector, we need to use soft, smooth shapes, gradient transitions and other communication signals associated with their values: peacefulness, belonging, love, feelings.
For yellow - unexpected, new moves, vivid impressions and images.
For blue, we will use symbols of achievements and goals, complex descriptions and evidence.
For Reds - symbols of tradition, constancy and reliability.
However, at the stage of studying the brand’s target audience, it is not so easy to clearly determine which segment it belongs to. And also, as practice shows, the boundaries can be a little blurry, since there is almost nothing exceptional in psychology. It is also important to take into account that in one person, as a rule, several psychotypes intersect, some predominate more, some less. Knowing your audience, you can easily meet consumer expectations and match their usual behavioral patterns, which will allow your brand to become “understandable and your own.”
