The impact of a values-based segmentation on media planning can and will be felt. Knowing the media habits of the 62-plus population is important. By determining the media habits of the Active Achievers or the Intense Individualists, for example, media placement and tactics can be more targeted and thus more cost effective.
The values-based segmentation has excellent potential to help those marketing to the New Customer Majority. It can help marketers achieve greater insight as to which words and phrases to use and which to avoid, generally, and in each universe. Finally, the end result of using values-based research is that it will result in marketing to an "ageless" market, thus eliminating chronological age as the sole basis for one group viewing another.
For instance, Active Achievers and Intense Individualists place a very high value on thrills and excitement. This explains some of those "odd" individuals that don’t fit into the stereotypical view of this population. These market segments are the ones skydiving and trekking off to some remote place on Earth to visit a hidden temple. Interestingly enough, we know there are younger individuals doing the same thing. Why? Because values cut across all age groups.
If a 45-year-old and a 65-year-old aspire toward the same value, then messages based on that value will communicate to both.
As the leading-edge boomers begin to age chronologically, every company in America is trying to scramble to grab this market. There are so many numbers, so many life stages, and so many different types of boomers that trying to make sense of it all can be confusing, costly, and fruitless.
One of the key functions of research based on Value Portraits is that it provides an unchanging baseline against which all known demographic information can be categorized and evaluated. Now marketers can take the known information and look at it through the values lenses of their target market instead of filtering the information through their own biased eyes.