Segmenting by numbers

I'm a big fan of John Grant - his blog is one of the few that I keep up with on a regular basis. I like his positive and humanistic approach to marketing. I hope to get round to reading his book soon enough. However, in answer to a question from one of his readers, he recently brought attention to a study he had conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Sound into the lifestyles of 16-24 year olds. His conclusion - that there are three sorts of young people Traditionals (25%): top indexing lifestyle statement is ‘my faith is very important to me’. Enjoy a good night in more than going out. watch gardening programmes. Big Radio 2 listeners. Moderns (50%). “the point of drinking is to get drunk”. Labels and brand avid. Like to drive a flash car, have the latest mobile, trainers, live & spend for today. National lottery is their favourite Tv programme & they listen to rap, r&b, dance and pop (and not scruffy indie stuff). Postmoderms (25%). Brand rejectors. No logo/eco values. Avoid packaged holidays and anything on the beaten track of culture. More into the internet than mobile. Quite posh - inverted snobs but still snobs. Watch arts programmes and their big music likes are indie and classical. Hang on a minute though. I'm 24 and I can't quite see where I fit in here. I like indie music but then I'm also into to rap and dance. I've read No Logo but I don't agree with everything Klein says. I'm certainly no brand rejector - I wear Nike trainers and buying a few nice things is... well nice. I like to think I take some interest in the environment but I'm sorry to say that I don't currently do much about it (I suspect like many people). Its not unknown for me to watch art programmes but I've also been hooked on Big Brother. I use the internet a lot at work but I couldn't live without my mobile. My point here isn't that John's categorisations of young people are well off the mark (if push came to shove, I would place myself into the postmodern box). What did strike me though was John's assertion that - Much understanding is lost when they are lumped together into ‘the youth of today’. Because inevitably something is lost in every categorisation - including this one. Of course, the media love these kind of categorisations. They fill column inches and they give a quick an easy explanation. But as a researcher I feel that segmentations need to pick up on more subtle nuances than this if they are really to mean something. Broad categorisations may paint a pretty picture, one that we can all understand. But how far do they get us in truly understanding our subject? I would argue – not very far. In fact, in this case I could see these same criteria being used to break down 30-50 year olds. Ok, priorities might change and people may have a little less time for popular culture but you could still lump them into ‘Traditonal’, ‘Modern’ or ‘Postmodern’ categories. Do they go to the Costa Del Sol (modern) for their holidays or do they prefer a quiet village in Tuscany (traditional)? Are they brand-rejectors (postmoderns) or do they drive flash cars (moderns)? We don’t stop acting out these kind of attitudes and lifestyles as soon as we hit 25. So on the one hand, John is saying not to look at the 'youth of today' as a homogeneous mass, but on the other hand he's giving crude segmentations that tell us very little more. I'm doubtful these breakdowns are much use for targeting or understanding youth culture. Do 25% of young people really listen to Radio 2? Is the National Lottery really the favourite programme of 50% of 16-14 year olds? I don't think so and I know that this isn't quite John's point. But if we are going to segment then we need to know what angle we are approaching the group from. In this case, the picture is painted with such a broad stroke that is almost as blurred as looking at the group as a whole.