Some W’s are MORE EQUAL than others

There are so many dangers with targeting.

Like with ‘Who?’. Believing it makes any kind of sense to target generationally.

As Kim Parker of the Pew Research Centre said recently: “The question isn’t whether young adults today are different from middle-aged or older adults today. The question is whether young adults today are different from young adults at some specific point in the past.”

Or ‘What?’. Seeing the category you buy data on, rather than the market your customer is in.

“Our aim is to build a community of lovers of our unique brand of healthy, guilt-free cookies.”

Or ‘When?’. And ‘Where?’.

These two are always at the heart of the mental availability argument. Make sure buyers remember your brand at this particular time and in this particular place.

That led some guy on LinkedIn to say that this was the key difference between Corona and Guinness. On a beach Corona comes to mind, in an Irish pub Guinness does. Man’s a genius.

Then there’s ‘Why?’. Not Simon Sinek’s Why, the proper one. Market orientation, with a question mark.

Starting with surface drivers. It’s vital to meet these but generally impossible to own them.

Unless by some miracle everybody else has looked straight past them. And overlooked, for example, that all insurance is there to fix things in a customer's time of need. Take a bow, Direct Line.

And then there’s the other 'Why?'. Your deeper needs.

Still plenty of risk of drowning here.

Like feeling you’re in a psychology lecture.

Or falling for ye olde archetypes.

Or jumping straight from a consumer need to a brand personality and missing out the positioning part altogether.

But the great thing about deeper needs is they never really change. Unchanging man.

So once you have the Need Map for your world of interest, it’ll last you a long time. That research project will prove exceptionally good value (click here for a quote).

And there’s another thing.

Once you have your ‘Why?’, you can find yourself rethinking your ‘Who?’, ‘What?’, ‘When?’ and ‘Where?’

Maybe a lot more people have that ‘Why?’ than you first thought.

And that world is a whole lot bigger than the ‘What?’ you first pictured.

And yes, it is this ‘When?’ and that ‘Where?’. But it’s also this one and that one. It’s the feeling of being on the beach, not the beach itself.

That’s why Animal Farm by George Orwell is a classic.

In fact, it’s exactly like that.