Beyond the Demographic Pigeon Hole: In Our Data-Rich World We’re Still Defaulting to Lazy Cohorts

The marketing industry seizes every opportunity to talk about Gen Zs and their zeal for collaboration, collectivism and cooperation, yet we continue to ignore the very point they are making. They don’t pigeonhole themselves, so why are we still using generational demographics and hackneyed labels to refer to groups with nothing in common except a birth year?

In today’s audience-first multichannel world, we have long had better quality data than age-related demographics to understand behaviour and improve targeting, yet this lazy language persists. There is a groundswell of support to dump these unhelpful distinctions. From scientific researchers calling on the influential Pew Research Center to stop promoting the use of Baby Boomer, Millennial and, increasingly, Gen Alpha, to TikTok, which declared communities are the new demographics in its What’s Next 2023 trends report, published at the end of last year.

It is a more nuanced picture on the ground that such declarations might suggest. There are some great examples of brands that embrace interest-based communities, which social and digital media have long allowed us to target, whether through serving paid ads or content creators and influencers. In our work with QSR chain Subway, we have helped the business make genuine cultural connections with cross-generational audiences.

Shared interests like football, gaming and veganism have provided us with brilliant creative fodder. For the World Cup, we hijacked hundreds of substitutions as a part of a Twitter promotion that gave away free Subs. It sparked delight among influencers and content creators as they had to beat the clock to win codes - they only appeared as long as the substitution was taking place. 

Using Animal Crossing, we drove a 233% increase in positive sentiment among players with the Tuna for Tuna campaign. Players, including many influencers and creators, spent days trying to catch a tuna using the same line and pole method as Subway to get rewarded with a real tuna Sub. For Earth Day, we created the world’s first plant-based grime track by working with vegan grime legend P Money and vegan producers Star.One to highlight the benefits of a plant-based diet to younger consumers.

Just as an age bracket doesn’t scratch the surface of what makes a person, their interests are also not the only things that define them, however. Thinking about audiences in terms of the life stage they are at could bear great strategic fruit for marketers and brands. Buying a first home, having a first child, or retirement are times when people are seeking new products and services to support new phases in their lives - financial products, cars or holidays. It would be odd to target Gen Z as a cohort in media, bearing in mind some of them are just embarking on their GCSEs, while at the other end of the age range, others could be getting a divorce. Life stage, personal values, career choices, location - all of these and more give us much richer and more relevant ways to connect with audiences. 

Ending the dominance of age-related demographics might feel like letting go of the lifebuoy at a time when there are few certainties about the future and what that means for organisations. The pandemic years taught us all the importance of flexibility, working smarter, and quickly adapting, and brands will need to lean heavily on these skills as we go forward. If we start by unshackling from the unhelpful legacy of generational demographics, we will finally have the freedom to be genuinely audience-focused.

Zaid Al-Zaidy is founder and group CEO of The Beyond Collective