Psychological types of consumers. Psychographic types of consumers Psychographic characteristics of consumers

Another segmentation principle is psychographic division. Many features in human behavior cannot be explained by demographic “means”.

For example, there are fans of rock or Vysotsky's songs both among young people and among adults, among the rich and the poor, radio stations of the corresponding format are listened to by both "associate professors with candidates" and "peteushniki".

It can be assumed with a certain degree of confidence that people who prefer to wear jeans - it does not matter where exactly: to the theater or to the bathhouse, to the dacha or to their expensive office - have some common character traits, regardless of their socio-economic status, gender , age or place of residence.

Such similarities in tastes and preferences, noted among such different people, makes researchers think that in many cases segmenting the potential audience is extremely important, especially when dividing the market for so-called "symbolic products" (i.e. goods purchased with the purpose of demonstration of status - drinks, cigarettes, clothes, cars, etc.).

Unfortunately, classifying consumers according to their psychological characteristics is a much more difficult and time-consuming task than dividing according to demographic and geographic characteristics. Such information cannot be found in statistical reference books; it has to be collected on a specific occasion using specially prepared tests for this case. For example, more than half a century ago, Alfred Politz found that, with other similar indicators, people who like to take risks are more likely to buy sophisticated household appliances (deep fryers, air conditioners, etc.) than their more prudent neighbors, colleagues and friends.

Most often, such segmentation is performed according to a person's lifestyle - on the basis of an analysis of his interests, the type of recreation and entertainment that he prefers, etc. (The significance of this factor of segmentation is clearly seen from the fact that it gave the name to a whole type of publication - “life-style magazines”.) According to H. Boyd and S. Levy, “the life of each person passes in a certain way, and in such a way strives to achieve, maintain and demonstrate, making it visible and recognizable. Since the lifestyle is consistent and visible, people who adhere to it are likely to respond in the same way to marketing communication and will seek to acquire the same or similar products. "

Research proves that people with different lifestyles, thoughts and value systems, regardless of their similarities in other indicators, need to send advertising messages of different form and content.

Of course, with such data, the firm will offer each (or selected) group an appropriate product and will present it in its advertising message in the same way.

But even people who are close in "spirit" and position when buying a certain product or service are guided by various (often situational, and not essential psychological motives that an advertiser can use as the basis for presenting a product on the market. which manufactures various medications for home use, including pregnancy tests. different approaches and even two completely different packages (despite the fact that the product itself was the same inside), “exploiting” differences in the expectations and fears of women during desired and unwanted pregnancies.

In general, among the psychographic features, the following are noted: lifestyle, character traits, life position, motives of behavior and ideas about oneself, habits, hobbies, inclinations, etc.

Lifestyle of the target audience

By lifestyle, consumers can be classified as follows:

- successful,

- opportunists,

- experimenters,

etc.

For example, the car company "Nissan", examining the attitude of car owners to a specific type Vehicle, found that their current and potential customers are clearly divided into six different types: technocrats (people who like to drive and "dig" in it); Epicureans (prefer stylish, elegant sports cars); Purists (love cars and enjoy driving, but skeptical of the advertisers' claims); functionalists (prefer practical conservative models); couch potatoes (they do not like to drive and above all value the safety of the car); negativists (perceive the car as a necessary evil).

Within the framework of the Russian Life Style project, the COMCON company described the following groups: surviving (inactive, low-consuming); traditionalists (preferring domestic goods, active summer residents); aspiring (trying to adapt to market relations); common people (live mainly today); carefree (main interests - music, sports, computers); innovators (enthusiasts, fashionistas); prosperous (satisfied with their financial situation); successful (mostly very successful).

The nature of the target audience

By nature, people are:

- sociable,

- independent,

- apathetic indifferent,

- smug,

- worried,

etc.

These features can also be used when designing and targeting ads. So, for example, "independent" are less susceptible to emotional impact than "sociable", respectively, different media can be used to influence each of the groups.

Informational preferences of the target audience

People can be grouped according to their preferences for receiving information. Some people watch more TV, listen to the radio, others read newspapers and magazines.

In addition, media audiences can be classified by how much time they spend on media:

- active users,

- inactive users.

Such data allows you to determine the most effective advertising medium for a specific target audience.

In order to identify information preferences, they resort to a special analysis - m single-imperatives (media imperatives) or media comparison (media comparatives). In the process of this analysis, the intensity of contacts with television or magazines is determined. Thus, among the target audience, one can identify the number (or index) of active (intense) TV viewers who read little of the press. It is also possible to calculate the group of inactive viewers or the group of active / inactive users of both media. For example, in one case study, a comparative media analysis of intense frozen pizza consumers “found that 17% of intense frozen pizza consumers are bigger fans of magazines and television than the average housewife. This suggests that a media plan focused on this target group, should take into account both media, and not focus on one of them. "

More information on this topic can be found in the book

Psychographic studies of consumer behavior

1. PSYCHOGRAPHY

Psychographic marketing research is based on a science called psychography. Psychography characterizes consumers in terms of their psychological makeup (type of activity, life positions, interests, values, opinions and lifestyles). Demographic and psychographic dimensions are complementary and should be used together. If demographics are objective quantitative indicators, such as age, gender, education, marital status, then psychography takes into account relatively imperceptible phenomena - motives, interests and life values of people.

One of the most common methods of measuring lifestyle is based on psychography. Psychographic marketing research provides quantitative data that can be applied to large samples that need to be broken down into market segments. Qualitative marketing research (focus groups and in-depth interviews), although they do not give quantitative results, nevertheless, allow a deeper look at the construction of a strategy, give interesting ideas... The general psychographic approach is based on taking into account the personal characteristics of each consumer in the group, the motives of their behavior as consumers, their life values, behavioral attitudes and beliefs.

The psychographic analysis that these marketing studies use allows sellers to understand the lifestyles of buyers of their products. Such marketing research makes it possible to communicate more effectively with representatives of different segments. At the same time, psychographic marketing research allows you to find out how to position a new or existing product, how best to "convey" it to consumers adhering to a certain lifestyle, how to more accurately use the information obtained for accurate and effective marketing communications.

2. FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

The variables that shape your inner self are your psychological makeup. Although the term "psychographics" includes hundreds of dimensions, the most relevant areas for advertising and marketing are: perception, learning, motivation, attitude, personality, and lifestyle.

1 PERCEPTION

Every day we are attacked by stimuli: faces, conversations, buildings, advertisements, news broadcasts - even if we consider that we see or hear a small part of it. Why? The answer is perception. Perception is the process of receiving information through our five senses, being aware and making sense of it. Perception is conditioned by the influence of three components:

The physical characteristics of the stimuli;

The ratio of stimuli to their environment;

The mood of the individual.

It is the last component that makes the perception individual. Each personality perceives the available stimuli in its own coordinate system. The irritant depicts things that can be perceived from outside world... The total number of stimuli affecting us further complicates the process of perception. We perceive some of these stimuli completely, others partially, some correctly, some incorrectly. Ultimately, we choose some stimuli and neglect others because we are not able to immediately perceive all the information coming to us.

We select experiences on two levels: internal and external. Internal selection occurs for mental and physiological reasons (for example, older people do not see an ad that is too small and cannot hear an ad that is too quiet). Psychological selection, driven by our feelings, interests, or experiences, causes us to distort or ignore certain stimuli. These feelings make heterosexual consumers overlook gay and lesbian advertisements. Those who hate sexual innuendo may not notice advertisements with such innuendo.

2 ELECTORAL PERCEPTION

Although the selection of information in the process of perception is a common concept in psychology, the selectivity of perception for advertising is especially important. The process of filtering out information that is not of interest to us and preserving the one that is interesting is called selective perception. Think about the route you take every day. How many stimuli do you perceive? You, like most people, perceive road signs, the movement of other vehicles and pedestrians in front of you. But you may not notice the posters you pass by every day, the numbers on the houses, or the people behind you. This is selective perception.

The same process is repeated when we watch TV or read a magazine; when we look at an ad and only perceive a headline, or a photograph, or a celebrity representing a product.

In addition to our tendency to choose those stimuli that interest us, we also perceive stimuli in a way that is consistent with our view of things. That is, our world contains our own experience, values, beliefs, inclinations and attitudes. It is virtually impossible to separate these intrinsic factors from the way they are perceived. For example, we tend to seek out messages that are pleasing or attractive to our eyes and avoid those that are painful or unnerving. This is called exposure selectivity. Consumers selectively perceive ads that convince them of the wisdom of their purchasing decisions.

Also, when we receive messages that are contrary to our beliefs, we are dealing with selective distortion. For example, a consumer may “hear” that a car is using little gas, even if the seller clearly shows that this is not the case, since the consumer perceives the other qualities of the car as ideal and really wants to buy it.

The selection process is of interest to advertisers as they need to know if the consumer will accept the ad and for how long. Selective perception also greatly influences our attitude towards a person, idea, situation. For example, if we maintain a strong, positive attitude towards security, then we will be more receptive to messages related to that topic. With intense perception, we will strive to remember the details of the message about the characteristics of the product and the brand.

Our response to stimuli has a lot to do with advertising. Much of what passes through the brain is lost in a moment. Even when we try very hard to preserve information, we are not able to preserve it in large quantities. Selective memorization is the process we go through trying to “store” information for future use. Advertising can facilitate this process with repetition, vivid imagery, catchy brands and product names, jingles, good commentators, music, and more.

2.3 COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Another possible reaction to selective perception is feelings of dissatisfaction or doubt. Rarely does a purchase produce all the expected positive results. According to the theory of cognitive (cognitive) dissonance, we have a tendency to assess the small or large discrepancy between what we actually received and what we expected to receive. Research into this phenomenon has shown that people tend to avoid this inconsistency. They seek information to support their decisions, ignoring other information. Advertising can play a major role in reducing dissonance. For example, to stay ahead of dissonance and promote supportive messages, IBM uses grateful reviews from satisfied customers and restaurants complement print ads with discount coupons.

As you watch TV, pay attention to how you see the ad. What are you paying attention to? Why? When do you "readjust"? Why? Do you just disagree with the message or argue with it? Can you see how your own selection process affects your attention and ad response?

4 TRAINING

Perception leads to learning - this means that we cannot learn something until we fully perceive the information and make sense of it. Learning is often an unconscious activity; the consumer usually does not even know when this is happening. Once advertisers understand how learning is done, they can create ads that allow consumers to easily learn basic elements of an ad such as brand name, product features, and price. They can also use different relationships... Beliefs, preferences, values and standards influence learning and purchasing behavior.

Many theories have been developed to explain various aspects of learning. Typically, professionals rely on two approaches to explain the learning process. The first views it as a cognitive, or thought process. The second is as the formation of behavior. Proponents of the first approach attach particular importance to perception, the process of solving a problem, they consider people as problem solvers and passing through the complex path of information analysis. Cognitive advertisers try to motivate the consumer by offering information that should guide the purchasing decision.

The second approach argues that people acquire skills for a specific behavior by associating specific stimuli with a subsequent response, that is, through classical or instrumental learning. Essentially, the classical formation of behavior combines one stimulus with another, which has already elicited the necessary reaction, and is often associated with the experiments of Academician Pavlov. Reward serves as a tool in this behavior learning. Advertisers who take this view try to emphasize that their brand offers more value than other brands.

5 HABIT

When we repeat a process many times and are satisfied with the result, we achieve what is called a habit. Habit is an abbreviated decision-making process: we save time and effort by not looking for information about alternatives. Plus, shopping habit reduces risk. New purchases of the same brand reduce the possibility of poor product choices and wasted money. Of course, advertisers would like consumers to develop a habit of using their products. Achieving this goal requires strong handling backed by a high quality product.

The role of advertising is to once form a habit, reinforce it with reminder messages, expressions of appreciation and real rewards in the form of coupons, premiums and discounts. It is very difficult to break a buying habit. Offering the consumer new information about the manufacturer and his efforts to create the product is one approach. Offers of additional incentives in the form of exchanges, coupons, free samples have also been shown to be effective. Of course, price-sensitive shoppers tend to buy the cheapest products. This habit is very difficult to break.

Advertisers use a variety of tools to improve learning. To strengthen positive associations, messages with congratulations to various celebrations, testimonies famous people, scenes with attractive people in attractive situations. Humor is also used to reward the audience for their attention.

6 MOTIVATION AND NEEDS

Motive is the inner strength that prompts a person to behave in a certain way. This driving force is the result of a state of tension that results from unmet needs. People try to deliberately and unconsciously reduce this stress, satisfying their needs and thereby relieving perceived stress.

At every moment you are under the influence of many motives, some of them contradict each other. Some motives are stronger than others, but this balance of forces changes from time to time. For example, your motivation to buy a new suit would be significantly higher if you had multiple job interviews scheduled for the next week.

What are your buying motives? Think about your purchases over the past week. Did you have a reason to buy these items that you could tell someone about? Was there any other hidden reason? Understanding the motivation for buying is very important for advertisers because the ad message and timing of the ad is consistent with your motivation.

Needs are basic desires that create motivation to do something. Everyone has their own unique set of needs; some of them are congenital, others are acquired. Congenital needs are physiological, including the need for food, water, air, shelter, and sex. Since the satisfaction of such needs is necessary to sustain life, they are primary needs.

Acquired needs are those that we shape based on our culture or environment. These can include needs for respect, prestige, influence, power, and knowledge. Since acquired needs are not necessary for our physiological survival, they are called secondary. Advertisers try to assess the most important consumer needs at a given time. No one category of needs has a consistent priority over others.

7 RELATIONSHIP

Attitude is a stable position; a feeling experienced for an object, person or idea, formed on the basis of your ideas and feelings and leading to certain behavior. The attitude is usually quite persistent - it can last for months or years.

We form and develop relationships, we are not born with them. They change their direction and strength. Thus, relationships can be positive or negative, reflecting liking or disliking, or neutral.

A mildly positive attitude may not be enough to get you to take action. It is possible to change the attitude, but it is not easy.

Relationships also reflect customer values. They tell the world what we support in it and define the things and ideas that we consider important. They also shape our positive and negative reactions to things and phenomena in the world. Opinion research is used to test how people feel about other people, products, brands, messages, and modern trends... One of the most important areas for researching opinion about advertising is brand and product perception. It is important to know how the consumer is evaluating the product before developing an advertising strategy.

8 INDIVIDUALITY

All of these personal and psychological qualities are involved in creating your unique personality. Individuality is the characteristics of character and mental makeup that distinguish one person from another. The way you look at the world, how you perceive and interpret what is happening around you, how you react intellectually and emotionally, how you form your opinions and positions, all this characterizes your personality. Your personality is what makes you a person.

Self-awareness is the perception of oneself. Our own image reflects our vision of our individuality and personal example strength and weakness. What character traits characterize you best? What do they tell you about your self-image? Now imagine that you are a customer. Explain how your characteristics affect how you view different products, advertisements, and your buying behavior. Do you see that understanding personality is important when writing a proper message?

3. LIFESTYLE

Lifestyle factors in psychographic research are often seen as fundamental. Typically, lifestyle research looks at how people spend their time, energy and money. Marketers research human activity, interests and opinions - in other words, what they usually do and how they behave, what interests or fascinates them, what they believe or perceive in the world around them. There is one very popular research method that groups life style characteristics, and that is VALS2.

SRI International is known for its VALS (Values and Lifestyle System) conceptual model, which categorizes people according to their values and then identifies consumer behavior associated with those values. VALS systems are used to show how consumer groups are changing and how these changes affect advertising strategy. Having determined that the relationship between social values and purchasing choices is less strong than previously, SRI has developed a second system based on psychographic characteristics. Research has shown that these characteristics help predict buying behavior. Resources include income, education, self-confidence, health, desire to buy, and energy levels. Obviously, knowledge of the psychographic orientation of consumers is valuable to the advertiser in deciding who should be targeted for advertising.

4. VALS2 CONSUMER CLASSIFICATION

marketing psychography consumer

Actualizers. They love high quality things. They are receptive to new products, technologies, (adherents of everything modern). They are skeptical about advertising. Publications of all kinds are often read. They watch little TV.

Qualified. Little interest in image or prestige. Consumption of household goods is above average. Love educational and public programs... They read a lot of books and of all kinds.

Conservative. They buy everything that is domestic. Difficulty changing habits, looking for bargain purchases. More than the average viewer watching TV. Read magazines on home economics, gardening and general plan.

Reaching. They are attracted by the variety of products and premium products. The average audience reads about business, news and self-help publications.

Aspirants. Think about the image. Have limited discretionary income, but buy on credit. Spend money on clothing and personal items. They prefer television to reading.

Experimenting. Follow fashions and whims. They spend most of their free money on communication. Buy on impulse. Pay attention to advertising. Listen to rock music.

Active. Buy for comfort, durable and valuable. Their luxury is not impressive. They buy the necessary things, listen to the radio. They read magazines on topics: car, "do it yourself", fishing, recreation.

Wrestlers. Committed to the brand. They use coupons, are interested in sales. Trust advertising. They often watch TV. Read tabloid newspapers and women's magazines.

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According to statistics, 65% of decisions a person makes under the influence of reasons that are rather indirectly related to logic. Making an impulsive purchase is a process of a clear dominance of desire over reason, an instant decision to buy without understanding the strong and weaknesses goods. Majority impulse purchases occurs:

Under the influence of an instant desire to use (I felt the smell of fresh bread - I really wanted to try it);

Under the influence of associations caused by the product itself (I saw beer - I remembered a feeling of slight relaxation - I bought it to taste it);

The main zone of impulse purchases is supermarkets and stores of personal daily consumption products (for example, household goods). In order to be included in the range of impulsive goods, the product must have one or more of the following qualities:

1. Have an attitude towards pleasure.

2. Be attractive in appearance.

3. Have a small size or imply "divisibility" (the possibility of small packaging or small packaging "for sample").

4. Have maximum demonstration capabilities.

In marketing, the purchase is considered the central link of consumption; the forces of marketers, economists, managers are thrown into increasing the number of purchases in different ways. Traditionally, marketers believe that organizing a purchase is the business of the company, and post-purchase processes are a private business of the consumer, closed to prying minds. In the mainstream of consumer psychology, this is a controversial thesis. Psychologists also study in detail the use as behavior, which is an external expression of personal qualities.

Types of consumers

By the scale of consumption there are two types of consumers: consumer-individual and consumer-organization. Individual consumers are people who buy or use a product for their own benefit. Consumer organizations are firms that use the product to carry out their activities (for example, the Faculty of Psychology is a corporate consumer of textbooks, paper and office supplies). It is clear that the models of their behavior will be completely different.

By place in the distribution channel distinguish between consumers-intermediaries (they are organizations that resell the goods) and end consumers (they are individuals or organizations that directly use the product).

By type of consumption consumers can be divided into the following types:

Buyers- individuals or organizations who choose a product and pay for it (type of consumption - purchase).

Users- individuals or organizations actively using the product (type of consumption - use).

Owners- individuals or organizations that have a product, but do not use it physically (type of consumption - possession). This type of consumer can be subdivided into subtypes. Landlords- persons or organizations that rent out their property. The keepers- persons or organizations that store goods and do not actively use them. For example, the owners of paintings, luxury goods, as well as grandmothers who keep the inheritance "in a stocking" (type of consumption - storage).

Recyclers- individuals or organizations that recycle the results of their use of the goods: garbage, obsolete, out-of-order goods (type of consumption - utilization).

Buyers are traditionally divided into 2 types. Customer - a person who is directly in contact with a specific product / service. Customer (in relation to the company) - a person ordering and / or paying for a product / service.

There are many typologies of consumers, which are based on various typological features. Most often, social and demographic characteristics are used as typographical features.

Consider universal consumer typologies.

Typology has become a classic in American science by the intensity of consumption. Depending on the frequency and / or volume of consumption, consumers are divided into three types: heavy (active), medium (moderate), light (inactive).

Everett Rogers' Typology of Consumers ( E. Rogers, 1962) has become famous among both economists and marketers. It is based on the concept of "diffusion of innovations" - the process of acceptance (adaptation) of an innovation by consumers and its distribution in the market. He proposed six stages through which the innovation diffusion process goes:

1. Attention.

2. Interest.

3. Evaluation.

4. Verification.

5. Adaptation.

6. Recognition.

It is believed that the dissemination of new information or a new product in a group or society goes through several stages: knowledge of innovation, interest in innovation, evaluation, testing, decision to recognize the innovation.

According to the time of adaptation of the innovation, E. Rogers divided all consumers into 5 groups:

Innovators (2.5%) are risk-averse, highly educated, use a variety of information sources. They are mobile, have communications outside the local culture, and are able to recognize abstract ideas.

Early adopters (early adapters) (13.5%). This is a respectable group, integrated into the local culture and representing leaders in opinion, in social structure (norms, orders, tastes), a status above the average.

The early majority (34%) are hesitant. They embrace new ideas just before the average resident does; have a lot of informational contacts.

Later, the majority (34%). They are skeptics making decisions after the average citizen does. For him, the pressure of others is important.

Lagging (late adapters) (16%) are traditionalists: they are the last to make a decision and are very suspicious of anything new. This distribution is important for the promotion of new goods and services, since their introduction is possible only with the help of certain segments of the population who are more disposed to everything new. Neighbors and friends are the main sources of information.

The percentage of types was identified conditionally mathematically and was not tested experimentally. But, nevertheless, this typology is actively used in marketing. The distribution of consumers is described by a bell curve. Moreover, it reflects the shape of the curve of the classical life cycle goods!

The popular typology of Total Research Corporation unites consumers with about product attributes (significant properties):

Table 4

Consumer typology based on preferred product attributes

	Types of consumers	Preferred product properties
	intellectuals	Very high quality products, exclusive products
	conformists	Dominant product on the market
	Popularity seekers	Fashionable, modern goods
	pragmatists	Functional goods
	active	Good service, "Healthy" products
	Vacation seekers	Goods that make life easier
	sentimental	Simple, out of fashion products

Macdonald D. psychometric methods identified 6 types of buyers:

Evaluators are interested in finding the best price-quality ratio;

Fashionistas - interested in the latest models, focused on their own image;

Loyal - they constantly buy the products of the same respectable firms, pay attention to both quality and image;

Lovers of variety are fickle, capricious and inconsistent;

Vacation shoppers - value the pleasure of shopping;

Emotional - often confused, impulsive and unsystematic in their addictions.

Segmentation as a type of consumer typology

A special case of typologies (classifications) of consumers is segmentation. Segmentation is the division of consumers into types (segments) that have uniform consumption characteristics according to the parameters being studied. There are three levels of segmentation:

Universal (macro-) segmentation- consumers are divided into groups that are common for the consumption of all goods;

Commodity (mega-segmentation)- consumers are segmented in relation to the consumption of this product (for example, bread);

Branded (micro-segmentation)- consumers are segmented in relation to the consumption of a given product, bought in a certain store, or produced by a certain firm (for example, bread from a Kaluga bakery). Thus, universal segmentation is in its pure form a more modern and popular synonym for "typology". Product and corporate segmentation are special cases of typology. For example, both the type of consumers and the segment are a group of consumers with the same consumption patterns.

The following types of segmentation are most commonly used:

Socio-demographic, or descriptive (by gender, age, social status);

Complex - by social class (upper, middle, worker, lower);

By benefits (by levels of benefits from the acquisition of a particular product, reasons for the purchase);

Behavioral - division into segments based on buying behavior (criteria: user status, level of product use, level of loyalty, sensitivity to marketing factors).

Of course, segmentation is good for tracking (monitoring) changing consumption, but completely unsuitable for predicting unrealized demand and future demand for innovation.

Each method gives its own results and is used to solve a certain range of problems, while each author has his own methodological preferences. With regard to Russia, an opinion is even expressed [ Krylov] on the self-sufficiency of the income criterion for segmenting the consumer market. However, there are also features that unite all of the above approaches. They view the consumer as part of a market segment subject to an externally set set of consumption laws. At the same time, individual characteristics are considered as secondary and personal characteristics, which are fundamentally not reducible to socio-demographic norms, are not taken into account at all.

Psychography as a method of studying consumer groups

Method "psychography" (analogue of "photography") - quantitative, or with the addition of qualitative, research that allows you to identify groups of consumers of any product or group of products based on psychological characteristics (i.e. values, attitudes, relationships, motives, needs) ... This method is also called "psychographics". In other words, psychography is the identification of consumer groups based on psychological characteristics and the compilation of psychological portraits of these groups. Segmentation VALS, AIO, PRIZM, etc. - a kind of psychographic typologies.

In consumer psychography, we describe each type based on three groups of characteristics:

a) psychological characteristics of consumer behavior or consumer relations (value, motivational, etc.);

b) social characteristics of the type - age, gender, financial, family characteristics common to representatives of the type;

v) psychological picture type - general psychological characteristics of the type, not related to consumption (often - based on the Cattell test and other personality tests).

Note that the sociological typologies of consumers in marketing were relevant in the 50-60s, when marketing was in its infancy, but now individual and personal consumer characteristics play a decisive role. Awareness of these features leads many researchers to attempts to psychologize marketing concepts... The psychological determinants of consumption include attention, perception, memory, knowledge, values and other phenomena. This is how "psychographic models" arose. The most common methods of consumer typology include psychographic models AIO, VALS and VALS-2, LOV, PRIZM, Global Scan.

The AIO model divides consumers into segments according to the following groups of parameters: activities - occupations, interests - interests, opinions - opinions. (Here it is necessary to make a clarification: very often the English-language term activity is translated by the concept of “activity.” However, in our opinion, this is fundamentally incorrect. English language and, accordingly, not in English-speaking psychology. Activity, depending on the context, can mean "activity", "occupation", "behavior", etc., but not "activity").

Model VALS(values & lifestyles - values and lifestyles) is based largely on Maslow's theory of needs. The model divides American consumers into 9 segments, grouped into 3 main groups: need-driven (11%), externally directed (67%), and internally directed (22%).

In 1989 SRI introduced a new model - VALS-2. She is more psychological and focused on the activities and interests of people. The assignment of consumers to a specific type is based on their agreement or disagreement with 42 statements. The model divides American society into 8 segments for two reasons. First - behavior orientation(on the principle, on the status, on the action) Second - consumer resources: financial, material, informational, physical and psychological. 8 segments are allocated : actualizer, self-realized, believing, reaching, striving, surviving, experimenter, maker.

Model LOV ( list of values) contain 9 values, which respondents rank according to their importance: self-realization, excitement, a sense of achievement, self-respect, a sense of belonging, being respected, safety, fun and pleasure, warm relationships with others.

Marketers use the highest value to rank consumers in their respective segments. The technique is very effective when combined with demographic data. The method is used to differentiate consumers in three areas: internal focus, (values 1, 2, 3, 4, correlation with internality) interpersonal focus (values 8 and 9), external focus (values 5, 6, 7, correlation with externality).

Analysis model geostyle US residents - PRIZM... Geostile is a geodemographic model of life style, based on the combination of geographic and demographic criteria. The model includes 40 types of lifestyles, divided into 12 clusters according to the criteria of the type of area of residence, combined with the demographic parameters of consumers. The names of the types reflect the nature of their segment: "blue blood estates", "brains and money", "agribusiness" and others.

Global Lifestyles Model - GlobalSсan.(Developed by the British company BSBW on the basis of 250 values and a component of relations of 15 thousand consumers in 14 countries.) There are 5 segments of the global lifestyle: from striving, reaching, suppressed, adapters, traditionalists.

These typology methods are much more informative, useful, their use helps to increase sales, but they do not completely solve the problems facing marketing. Questionnaires of 9, 42, 53 items are convenient for interviewing a large number of respondents, but they do not give a complete picture of the values, interests, life styles, which are aimed at studying. Their main feature is that they do not segment consumers, a population, that is, they are indirect. It is implicitly assumed that a certain psychosocial type is characterized by strictly defined consumer behavior. The unambiguity of this relationship raises reasonable doubts. Our research shows that any person is potentially capable of performing any behavioral act, including a consumer act.

The logical conclusion of the chain of reasoning in such a situation is usually the thesis about the irrationality of a person's economic behavior, which states that real behavior, unlike the model that is included in the analytical constructions of economics and marketing, is irrational and does not obey laws, even empirically identified.

In this regard, the most acute need of the psychology of consumption today is to find and classify the deep psychological causes of consumer behavior in order to create effective methods marketing segmentation, complementary to economic and sociological. But often marketers perform this procedure exactly the opposite. Thus, one of the leading researchers, J.-J. Lamben, offers “needs analysis through market segmentation”.

Among the Russian typologies of consumers, it is worth noting the typology of I. Merenkova, one of the first to defend her thesis on the psychology of consumption in Russia. Merenkova developed a typology of consumers, where 40 sociocultural tendencies (trends) were identified as the basis. Each trend has its own criteria. The trends are highlighted: human potential, personality elasticity, blurring the line between the sexes, self-expression, appearance, status, economic security, well-being, development of vitality, taste for risk, need for achievement, strategic opportunism, uncertainty and complexity, cultural mobility, interaction, need in law and leaders, flexibility, polysensitivity, self-conditioning, epicureanism, emotional experience, pleasure, enjoyment of consumption, joining different groups, intraception, collective goals, preference for membership in small groups, new roots, limitation, participation in public life, need for public recognition, social justice, fear of violence, integrity, spirituality, everyday life, lack of goals, ecosystem, caring for environment, supernaturalness.