Using Your Sixth Sense and the Census – Marketing Data
Using Your Sixth Sense and the Census – Marketing Data
What will it Tell Marketers?
Reported Missing - "The Average American" a.ka. Jane and Joe Consumer
Life and work are usually a whole lot of common sense and a bit of research but the plain facts are presently staring us in the face. There is no “Average American Family “- anymore in America and our population is aging.
The average household has changed and by 2010 the most prevalent household will be a married couple with no kids. These facts are all from pre-census data, the full results will not start to trickle out until March 2011.
Advertising Age has a peak into the data racing down the tracks toward the marketing community: ”New U.S. Census to Reveal Major Shift: No More Joe Consumer” By Bradley Johnson Published: October 12, 2009
LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — The 2010 Census is expected to find that 309 million people live in the United States. But one person will be missing: the average American.
“The concept of an ‘average American’ is gone, probably forever,” demographics expert Peter Francese writes in 2010 America, a new Ad Age white paper. “The average American has been replaced by a complex, multidimensional society that defies simplistic labeling.”
Click here to see the rest of the article >>>> click
What do I mean by common sense and the facts?
Go to and coffee shop ( I mean Starbucks but thought I slip in coffee shop code ) or any local restaurant and park yourself for a while and watch the crowds. The crowds don’t look anything like what most companies are targeting with their message and custom content. The “Average American” is now missing from the landscape and by 2011 they will be in the minority. And by 2010, “white non-Hispanics over age 65 will make up 80% of the population” and most marketing is still targeted toward a growing narrow demographic group – the young and foolish. That’s my own marketing term but it fits and I’m standing by it.
Has the time come for companies to build a more sustainable content marketing program that fits our current and future population? I think so and what’s the most important issue for marketers around the world, it takes time to develop and implement these new strategies, measure them and ultimately adjust as the facts trickle in from results and the pending census data.
Good luck, please take some time to sit down and study the landscape – it might be very enlightening.
Stella says, counting is all fine and good. But you better start trusting that finely trained gut instinct and the voices in that pretty little head of yours, telling you the future demographic breakdown in America has changed forever and your marketing, messaging and advertising better change right along with it.
