One of the biggest concerns with investing in a new segmentation, or indeed other consumer-based frameworks, is the speed at which they can potentially go out of date.
Even in relatively slow-moving markets like homecare or insurance, unexpected category challenges (e.g., Covid, the cost-of-living crisis) can emerge suddenly, undermining the ability of existing consumer frameworks to help us respond.
One way around this is to incorporate 3rd party CAGR data. When we calibrate this with the segment sizes, we can see which segments are projected to grow further in the future.
Another way is to incorporate trends into your framework. These help to illustrate where a category is heading – after all much of the change we saw with Covid was an acceleration of pre-existing trends.
These can be consumer trends but you can also incorporate demographic growth shifts too, to create a more complete picture.
By bringing to life how a category is shifting we can see which DS are in growth and which are in decline, as well as the speed of that change.
