Language Games, Social Science, and Public Policy: The Case of the Family

Abstract

Writing in American in January 1981 Ferguson rood advertising director for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution said Demographics are still the meat and potatoes of market measurement but lifestyle characteristics help many people understand market characteristics better. Similarly William Wells senior vice-president and research director at Needham Harper and Steers Advertising Inc. has said: Demographics lack color. They lack texture. They lack dimensionality. They need something that puts flesh on bare statistical bones. What Wells Rood and other market researchers are suggesting is that demographic profiles be supplemented with lifestyle and psychographic characteristics. This article explores the relationships between demographic and psychographic variables reporting on a study conducted by the authors. Marketers often claim that demographics are losing much of their descriptive value as a result of the rapidly changing society: Women in the work force are reducing traditional differences in sex roles; higher income has become less of a discriminator of buying power due to the spread of affluence and readily available credit; and so on. On the contrary the results of this study indicate that demographics do indeed still have much descriptive value. (excerpt)