Segmentation is not the prerequisite for success

This write-up about Ritson's latest speech at The Festival of Marketing was clearly clickbait, extolling the "pointless" segmentation of audiences, but what is clickbait if you don't bite? And we've bitten.

Quite aside from the fact that the article backtracks and finds good reason to use a segmentation, it ignores one fundamental thing. If most segmentations aren't fit for purpose then what should we be doing to make them fit for purpose? We need to give a little more credit to marketing and insights teams, especially the ones who have come to us realising that a simple attitudinal segmentation is a blunt-edged thing of the past.

Done properly, segmentation should deliver so much more than targeting. Going beyond demographics and psychometrics, bringing to life the consumption moment, needs and the other dynamics that lead to choice, painting a rich and detailed picture of the consumer.

As an agency, delivering a segmentation should never be about simply identifying the extroverts and introverts, the leading edge and the followers, before running to the hills for insights managers to pick up the pieces. It should be about inspiring, bringing to life opportunities and taking the business on the journey with you.

Segmentation does have a role, we just need to get beyond the basics and model markets in ways that can be used effectively, be it for broader strategic planning or for specific and targeted activation which many brands do benefit from.