Issued by: Consumer Insight Agency


The work builds on the c.i.a's NOW project, an ethnographic, video-based study that provides an intimate look at 12 key consumer groupings - or Archetypes - in South Africa. It is seeking to add a quantitative element to this already powerful qualitative study.

According to Wendy Cochrane, one of the directors of the c.i.a. the NOW project has made waves in the marketing fraternity since its launch last year.

“In applying the generic insights from NOW for diverse clients like Coca-Cola, brandhouse, Media 24, Unilever and Engen, the c.i.a Archetypes model has revolutionised how they view their markets, and challenged conventional segmentation methodology,” she says.

Cochrane says that the NOW project began simply as an attempt to document a broader cross section of South African society. “We believed that our clients needed to stay closer to the broader reality that is SA beyond the ‘emerging black market',” says Cochrane.

The result was a series of 12, 35-minute documentary-style films that provide an in-depth, honest understanding of unique individuals connected by a shared mindset. Each is instantly recognisable and intuitively real.

According to Cochrane the strength of the approach is that the Archetypes “challenge our tendency to stereotypically box consumers into predefined groups based on age, LSM, gender or race. Collectively they reveal the connections between us and give a birds-eye view on our shifting society,” she says.

However, being a qualitative study, the Archetypes do not necessarily carry the authority of more conventional consumer groupings, which is why earlier this year the c.i.a and Synovate got together to carry out a pilot study to determine the rough size of the market that each Archetype represents.

“It had become vital to develop a quantitative methodology that was replicable and stable in order to track future shift and help marketers to apply future strategies with confidence,” says Cochrane.

A random sample of 400 people was surveyed, in the Cape Town Metro, Durban Metro and Gauteng Complex areas, representing a cross-section of urban South Africa.

Jannie Hofmeyr, International Director of Innovation for Synovate, said the pilot represents the metamorphosis of the NOW project from an insightful look into the characters of South African society into a more powerful tool for marketers.

“We need to give marketers the hard facts as well. We are therefore starting to build on the information we have for each Archetype - ranging from the brands with which they identify to their spending patterns, media usage and handling of debt.

“In essence, we are trying to work out the marketing potential of each group,” he added.

The survey was conducted by showing respondents images from the qual study and asking them a series of questions based on their responses to the visual stimulus - without telling them the names of each group.

The two primary questions were, "Who do you feel similar to?" and "How would you classify yourself?". A series of ‘softer' questions were also asked.

According to Hofmeyr, in addition to putting rough numbers to each group, the study had some additional interesting spin offs. For example, the discovery that most people tend to ‘up-classify' themselves.

“We found that most respondents classified themselves as belonging to a group with slightly higher earning power,” said Hofmeyr. “This confirms that South Africans are generally highly aspirational.

“Because of this we couldn't simply classify people based on what group they thought they belonged to. We had to draw conclusions from the entire range of questions and answers we got - which helps to paint a more accurate picture.”

Hofmeyr added that the study showed that ‘Township Mama' and ‘Blue-collar Dad' make up the majority of the South African urban population, while, interestingly, the black middle class is starting to match the size of the white middle class - ‘Ja-well-no-fine'.

“We expected the working class to make up the majority of urban South Africa and our results confirmed this. We suspect that the rural areas consist mainly of those belonging to the ‘Have-not'/‘Gogo' groups. What we didn't expect to find, however, was that the ‘Polished Diamond' - or new elite - is now almost equal in size to the ‘Jones' group, which today consists mainly of the white upper-income population,” he said.
The significance of these findings is boosted by the fact that this approach to market analysis is completely unique. “This is a groundbreaking project in the field of quantitative analysis. Conventional methods group people together without taking into account their complexity as individuals. This kind of cluster analysis basically forces people into a framework and only afterwards is there an attempt to bring each segment to life - this is a back-to-front method of working,” said Hofmeyr.

“Here, we began by studying people first and then putting names and numbers to them afterwards.”

“We believe that this gives marketers a more realistic and useful classification of South African consumers,” says Cochrane. “This quantitative analysis adds weight to the NOW project. This will allow brands to tap into real needs and opportunities more accurately than was previously possible.”

Cochrane adds that the study also has important social and political implications. “The findings support our argument that we need to move beyond race or income as the primary means of understanding who we are and to start seeing the bigger picture,” she says, “While the archetypes reflect the demographic realities of our country, they also show that on some levels the boundaries that previously existed between South Africans are beginning to break down. There is however a glass ceiling of opportunity and a far greater mass that lies beneath it with many people aspiring to reach the next social level. For example, many people expect to be ‘Polished Diamond' or ‘Jones' within five years.

“We are living in a pressure cooker of aspiration and unmet basic needs and our industry needs to acknowledge the role that we have played in that. There is volume and real opportunity in meeting those unmet needs rather than in fuelling unrealistic aspiration, and we believe that NOW can help us start that revolution. What started as a humble project has now become a powerful strategic tool applicable at all levels of business from Marketing to HR and Corporate affairs, and it is particularly valuable in volatile marketplaces like ours.”

Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Born out of rebellion against conventional qualitative research approach, the c.i.a began in 1996 with just a curious mind, a pair of dirty boots, a camera & a philosophy... - more....

[23 Jul 2008 13:51]

SEND TO A FRIEND  |   PRINT