Marketing: Lifestyles (Psychographics)

Students doing marketing research often need lifestyle (aka psychographic) information, i.e. information about consumer's product preferences and recreational activities, usually in a specific geographical area.  The Auraria Library has a number of Marketing Databases, all of which can be found on our Database List, and many of these can provide that kind of information (along with many other kinds of marketing data, such as Demographics).  See below for the name of a database from that list that is especially good for lifestyle searches, Claritas 360!  However, this database can be difficult to understand and search, so instructions are below how how to use it.  The example below shows you how to do a lifestyle search in Claritas 360, but only for one kind of product.  If you choose to do another kind of lifestyle search in this database, i.e. to search for something else, somewhere else, just change the product and geographical indicators below.  NOTE: for more psychographic resources see the Demographic tab above!   

HOW TO SEARCH:

In this example, we'll look for information on "Bud Light" drinkers in Denver County.  Click on the SRDS link above, then CLICK ON THE ITEMS IN BOLD BELOW, which you’ll find in that database, and do so in the following order:

1. Claritas 360
2. Log into Claritas 360
3. Reports
4. Segmentation Reports
5. Lifestyler Reports
6. Market Potential
7. Under “Select Segmentation Systems”, click on Prizm Premier (if it isn’t already activated!).
8. Under “Select a Base”, click on Households (Zip +4) (if it isn’t already activated!).
9. Next
10. Claritas Profiles
11. Claritas Consumer Profiles
12. Alcohol
13. Domestic Light Beer Drank Past 30 Days Bud-Light
14. Next
15. At this point you’ll need to pick a geographical area. You can select data from the whole U.S., one or more states, one or more Designated Market Areas (i.e. metropolitan areas), and/or one or more counties.  In this case, we'll pick a county.
16. County
17. Within State
18. Colorado
19. Denver County
20. Next
21. On the following “Include Parent Geographies” page, leave defaults as is.  Don't change anything!
22. Submit
23. Wait for the report to load.  It will give you a number of options to select, but just ignore them!  Just wait for the report to load.
24. Report Output: Excel
25. Excel spreadsheet
26. Table View tab – Under this tab you’ll find a table showing Bud Lite Consumption in the last 30 days for every county in Colorado.  You’ll have to select Denver County from that list.
    • How to decipher the columns in Table View:
      • Base Count - total number of adults in that market.  Example: there are 323,013 adults in Denver County.
      • Base % Comp - percentage of households in the selected geography compared to the total number of households in the base geography.  Example: Denver County (i.e. the selected geography) makes up 14.19% of the households in the Denver Designated Market Area (i.e. the base geography).  NOTE – In some cases, depending on the search you do, the selected geography and the base geography will be the same thing, in which case the percentage will be 100!
      • Estimated users – number of people in the selected geography consuming the product in question.  Example: 70,375 people in Denver County drank Bud Lite within the last 30 days.
      • % Comp - percentage of estimated users in selected geography compared to the total number of estimated users in the base geography. Example: Out of the Bud Lite drinkers in the last 30 days located in the Denver Designated Market Area, 13.7% are located in Denver County.  NOTE – In some cases, depending on the search you do, the selected geography and the base geography will be the same thing, in which case the percentage will be 100!
      • Users/100 HHs - proportion of households/adults that have the profile behavior compared to the total households in the selected geography. Example: out of every 100 households in Denver County, there are an estimated 21.79 households that have drunk Bud Lite in the last 30 days.
      • Market Potential Index – how the geographical area selected compares with the national average (which is 100).  A number above 120 or below 80 is statistically significant for purposes of comparison.  Example: the Market Potential Index (MPI) for Denver County is 99, meaning the consumption of Bud Lite in the last 30 days is just slightly below the national average, which is 100.  Summit County’s Bud Lite consumption in the last 30 days, on the other hand, with an MPI of 138, (which, of course, is above 120) is well above the national average (go to the bottom of the table to find Summit County).

This database can be used to search for all kinds of marketing information, not just lifestyles, so if you'd like more information on how to use it please go to these instructions.