At TRA’s recent Sunrise Session, Colleen Ryan used the metaphor of zebra stripes to illustrate the limitations of traditional demographics in today’s diverse markets. She introduced Mindsets—a more insightful way to segment people based on their beliefs, interests, and motivations—allowing marketers to craft more tailored strategies. Joined by Shaun Fitzgibbon and Lindsey Horne, the panel discussed how Mindsets could drive behaviour change and better target audiences. Read more below to know the how these unique perspectives can transform your marketing strategies.

Every zebra has a unique pattern of stripes, yet when they're in a herd, it’s hard to pick them out individually. This works fine if you’re trying to influence the entire herd – steering them away from danger or towards water. But when it comes to people, things get trickier.

In today’s world, identifying specific subgroups is crucial. Whether you’re developing products, building marketing strategies or aiming to create real impact, you need to identify and engage with these subgroups, effectively picking them out from the herd.

At our recent Sunrise Session, you may have thought you’d stumbled into a zoology lecture. Colleen Ryan, our Partner and presenter, used zebras as a metaphor. Her point? One-size-fits-all approaches don’t work anymore. The challenge lies in picking the right method for the right group. Or, as Colleen put it, “horses for courses – pick your stripes."

During the presentation, Colleen highlighted both the benefits and pitfalls of traditional demographic labelling:

  • Demographics: Handy for representing populations – but are we capturing the whole herd?
  • Generations: They can feel culturally aligned, but without culture, they’re just age brackets.
  • Life stage: Relevant to categories, but not always to tone, message, or cultural context.
  • Personas: Everyone loves them – they’re relatable. Yet, dressing them up by naming and visualising them risks inviting bias and over-personalisation.

She then introduced Mindsets – an alternative approach that analyses a person’s overall orientation to life. Mindsets group individuals based on their beliefs, interests and motivations. We provided a QR code for audiences to discover their own Mindset, and [here’s the link]  if you'd like to take the survey!

Since 2018, we’ve surveyed over 300,000 New Zealanders and 10,000 Australians, and we know they’re stable and insightful. They reveal a lot about opinions on climate change, interest in sports, financial behaviour and levels of trust in brands – to name a few.

After Colleen’s presentation, Shaun Fitzgibbon (Managing Partner) and Lindsey Horne (Behavioural Insights Director) joined the panel. Their key takeaway? Mindsets offer powerful insights to tailor messages, target audiences, and drive behaviour change. Lindsey mentioned how climbers and challengers (progressive and aspirational) are far more likely to visit the gym, while these same Mindsets show higher switching behaviour in areas like electricity, banking, and phone services compared to more traditional groups.

The session sparked great questions and was a fantastic way to start the day. A huge thank you to The Marketing Association for organising this event and everyone who woke up early to join us!

Remeber, every zebra has distinct stripes, and every audience is made up of unique individuals. With the right insights, like Mindsets, you can move from herding the crowd to truly understanding the people within it.

Source: Teegan O'Connor, 10 September 2024