Demographics are important for governments and businesses to understand their populations and customers. Age demographics are particularly important for predicting future trends and planning for retirement and healthcare costs. Generational cohorts share cultural experiences and values. Companies use demographics to target their products and marketing strategies, often creating a profile of their ideal customer. The most coveted age demographic for businesses is between 18 and 34 years old.
Demographics are the statistical characteristics of a population of people. Information is considered vital to the development of a well-functioning society; leads the direction of the company. Governments decide public policies based on the specific composition of their country’s population. Companies develop and sell products based on the unique set of people they have retained as customers. Various characteristics such as gender or income level can be counted and measured, but one of the most important is demographic age.
Many countries around the world conduct periodic censuses of their citizenship, not only counting them, but also requiring them to identify critical traits such as education, wealth, health, race, and age. This provides a snapshot of national character, but more importantly, compared to previous census data, it provides an analysis of demographic changes and trends. For example, the US Census revealed an increase in new births for the decade immediately following World War II. With age demographics, the government knows when this so-called ‘baboom generation’ will retire and can therefore take steps in advance to ensure that projected increases in pension and healthcare costs are adequately addressed.
Another important concept in demographic study, closely related to age demographics, are generational cohorts. The assumption is that a group of people within a population, often due to proximity in age, share the same set of cultural experiences and values. This is especially true if significant events occur, such as war or a populist uprising against an irresponsible government. Media, business, and academic sociologists may give such groups nicknames, such as “Generation X” for Americans who came of age in the 1990s.
Perhaps no segment of society critically uses demographics more than businesses. Almost nothing is produced without taking into account the product’s target demographic and having a specific product marketing strategy for this group. Although a television station broadcasts to everyone, in fact, the company programs and sells advertising based on a narrow demographic of gender, race, and age. Companies have a variety of means to determine this, from product registration and surveys to trial runs.
Marketing demographics are often distilled into a profile. Most products fit an ideal customer with several specific traits, and a company’s sales effort is concentrated when the consumer base is translated into a single hypothetical individual. For example, an “age-defying” cosmetic cream that reduces skin wrinkles might have the demographic profile of a married woman, of fair skin color and between the ages of 30 and 40, with children, college education, income average family car and minivan for transportation. While there is much debate, the age demographic considered most coveted by businesses is between 18 and 34 years old.
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