Why the Demographers Are Wrong

Demographics have long been an essential tool in crafting creative solutions. They define markets, inform segmentation strategies, and most importantly, (and I'm convinced in the case of the 2010 Census most erroneously) predict future trends and concomitant consumer behavior.

What makes me doubt the projections sure to be divined from this new data?

The simple fact that mankind is entering a period of revolutionary technological change that will transform the future in ways currently only vaguely envisioned, and the 'science' of demography relies almost completely on evolutionary projections based on Demonstrated Historic Trends.

This realization struck me in a conversation I had with the Texas State Demographer.

For more than a decade I've served as a member of the Region H Water Planning Group (www.RegionHWater.org) tasked with ensuring sufficient water supplies for the greater Houston area, initiated in response to the prolonged drought of 1996-1998 by a Texas legislature facing continuing and explosive population growth.

This bottom-up planning effort seeks to predict population growth, distribution and associated water needs for 15 counties 50 years into the future, revised every five years. Our 2001 plan projected a total region population of 10,897,526 in 2060, and total infrastructure costs of $1.218 billion to meet the demand. The 2005 plan projected the same population, but costs grew to $5.461 billion. The 2010 plan projects population of 11,346,082 (+4%) with costs of $13 billion (+893%). Most of the costs are for moving water to urban areas already unsustainably overpopulated and projected to double, while rural projections remain totally flat. To me, something didn't add up.

A long-time resident of Houston, I moved to the region's least populous county in 1994, continuing to serve clients in major cities by telecommuting. Something I started doing (fax and phone) in the mid-80's, long before the internet.

When I asked the State Demographer how they were factoring the Information Technology revolution into the projections, his answer was disturbing, if not surprising. They're not.

Population distribution has always been driven by technological change - ships, railroads, etc. To date those changes have only resulted in new venues for the CONCENTRATION of population heretofore necessary for social, educational and commercial advancement. Now, for the first time in the history of man, connectivity in our increasingly virtual world allows these functions to flourish even if the population DISPERSES.

So why isn't this factored in to our plans for the future? Because despite the recognition that that information technology could reshape society in ways as yet unimagined, there is no HISTORIC data on which to base a new model. Well Duhh! It hasn't happened yet. But I think it will. Because I have faith that given a choice, people will increasingly choose to spread out instead of continuing to concentrate crowded, grid-locked, crime-infested cities.

In addition to the State Demographer I've sought the views of various other academic and business planning experts. They are all highly intelligent, well-intentioned people. Yet all cite (what is in my mind) this critical deficiency in the system currently used to project the future. As a result, we still look to complicated evolutionary changes to solve our problems (alternative energy) instead of simpler, more effective revolutionary ones like not driving as much.

Government studies indicate that if the 40% of U.S. workers with telecommutable jobs worked from home just half the time, it would save more than 2.5 times the energy currently available from all renewable sources, and reduce our carbon footprint equivalent to permanently removing 15 million cars from the roadways.

So are the demographics you rely upon accurate? That depends on your vision of the future.

Positive Results from Negative Thinking

You've read the client brief highlighting the unique benefits that all the research confirms the market would prefer. The goal is to increase sales to new customers. (isn't it always?)

You methodically create compelling concepts that emphasize all the positive reasons buyers will overwhelm you with responses. Everyone agrees on the clear winner. The design sparkles. The copy is perfectly crafted. Production worries they may not be able to meet the demand.

The launch goes without a hitch. You wait for the results. You look for the bump in the numbers. But your sales chart shows a flat line.

What could have possibly gone wrong?

This depressingly familiar scenario happens with alarming regularity. But it can often be avoided by applying a healthy dose of NEGATIVE THINKING!

How can negative thinking produce positive results? Because where new customers are concerned, the buying process is largely negative. They're reading the fine print, looking for the loopholes. Conjuring all the reasons they shouldn't buy, instead of believing in the reasons they should.

That's why one of the first things I do after absorbing all that positive input is play Devil's Advocate. Exploring all the objections a customer might raise in the buying decision process helps me develop creative strategies that sometimes obviously, sometimes transparently, overcome them.

The messaging is still positive, the design still sparkles, and each word is still carefully crafted. The difference is that I have disarmed the adversary, and built a relationship with a new ally to produce the business results good products, and good clients, deserve.

The Key to Branding and Marketing Success is Universal in Nature

Feeding and Breeding

Ever notice how clear you can think while performing mundane, repetitive tasks? Most of my revelations occur aboard the lawn tractor, but this one came to me early last spring when I was washing my truck.

Scrubbing away, I mulled the difficulty of my ongoing corporate assignment - convincing retirees that moving from home to a retirement community didn’t put the American Dream at risk.

Rinsing, I pondered what motivated two inexperienced, under skilled corporate Creative Directors - newly crowned by my employer at the time – to risk the ire of the big boss by ignoring his order to draw on my experience to develop a new campaign. Ego?

Drying, I noticed how the brown, bare pecan limbs stood in stark contrast to the bright green of fresh new leaves on every other tree. Why are they always last to bud? To lower the risk of freezing their nuts in a late frost. Protecting their ability to breed.

That, of course, reminded me of the previous fall when a suicidal 8-point buck stepped into the 70 mph path of my tricked out Mazdaspeed Miata. (Missed the deer but killed the car.) The East Texas woods are always full of deer, but they only risk detection at dawn and dusk to feed, and during rut to breed.

These musings clarified keys to influencing customer behavior that I had somehow always intuitively known and utilized, yet never quantified. It convinced me that Maslow’s Hierarchy is ‘Needlessly’ complicated, that his five-layer pyramid can be simplified to two – feeding and breeding.

Here it is in a Nutshell (pun intended).

Steve Tyler’s ‘Feed and Breed’ Customer Motivation Theory

1. Customers are Inherently Risk-Averse – Some combination of genetic code and acquired knowledge predisposes all organisms to avoid risk – trees resist budding too early, deer resist wandering in the daylight, customers resist buying new products or changing old perceptions.
2. Customers Conditionally Accept Risk - This instinctive aversion is most easily overcome by satisfying a need (feeding, survival) or desire (breeding, ego) of sufficient importance to make the risk acceptable.
3. Motivating Change is a Moving Target – New genetic research contradicts immutably dictated nature vs. nurture behavioral theories, and supports a fluid, nature via nurture process that develops somewhat randomly over time. Needs and desires are not mutually exclusive. And customers are not homogenous market demographics, they are individuals in a constant state of change.

To succeed, marketing, advertising and branding efforts must continually identify and appeal to the combination of current needs and desires most likely to motivate customers to accept the risk of change.

Feeding, breeding or both? Solutions that work evolve marketing science into creative art.