Insights

Do you still believe in the "phantom target group"? I hope not, because in many mass markets, there are not more target group definitions that could be useful – neither socio-demographic ones, nor psychological-communicative, nor clustered.

That used to be different, I admit: when our society was organized in almost caste-like layers and clearly divided. In those days, we argued as follows to develop brand, marketing, and media strategies:

• Anyone with a college degree, two kids, and a net household income of about €6,000 probably drives a Mercedes, reads the FAZ and votes for the CDU.

Such rigid divisions fulfilled their (advertising) purp0se for many years. But today's world is not structured so simply. Today, everyone wants to, can, and does do everything, and often at the same time. One way today, another tomorrow:

• Loving, responsible father with a keen interest in the latest toys in the morning. Successful urbanite at lunch. Coarse clubber in the evening. And on the weekend he takes the Porsche to Aldi for some grocery shopping. Life is one big surprise, not Maslow's needs pyramid. Freedom is the goal at the end of a lifetime of work. To do what you want. For as long as possible, as healthy as possible.

So it no longer makes sense to dissect our society with rigid target group templates as we have done for so long.

The diversity of digital media does away with the rough-hewn advertising mechanisms of the past altogether: Because it opens up entirely new opportunities for individually addressing single consumers, it makes campaigns that are meant to function based solely on target groups seem absurd. IBM got to the heart of this development with a TV spot:

Pure target group thinking is obsolete: With it, companies would concentrate on customers they could hardly reach anyway amid the media flood and then – if they indeed succeeded – would barely leave an impression.

It would make much more sense if you would – aside from individualizing communication – concentrate on a particularly valuable group of people at the heart of your marketing activities: the brand community.

Brand communities attract – through their values and convictions

What is the difference between a target group and a brand community? Target groups are defined by people who feel they were destined to do so – and then everyone aims at them. Typical example: the so-called "advertising-relevant target group", which is what TV stations generally call everyone between the ages of 14 and 49.

When brands adjust to such supposedly describable target groups, they promote their own interchangeability. As a consequence, all kinds of offers increase, but variety decreases at the same rate – because of a lack of discernible differences.

Brand communities, by contrast, work very differently: They define themselves and work through their attractiveness. They usually grow out of small groups and are all the more attractive because of their strong desire to be exclusive.

Such fan communities are communities of meaning, values, and emotions that form on their own. In contrast to target groups, they are not artificial and error-prone constructs.

Strong brand communities make potential customers into buyers and regular customers.

The job of a brand is to form such a brand community. But that only works when a brand has a clear profile, including bumps and edges. Of course not everyone will like them. But all those who do like the brand profile can be attached to the brand for a long time.

By this mechanism, a company gains fans, who become buyers or coveted regulars. So it counteracts the rampant loss of regular customers so many brands are currently suffering.

Promoting a strong brand community, though, is not just ideal for customer loyalty; it also provides a particularly high level of attractiveness: it magnetically attracts other customers. This kind of dynamic could never develop in a target group.