Life-stage targeting
Behavioral targeting has proven quite effective for leveraging consumers' interactions with content that indicates a high likelihood that they are going through a life stage, such as getting married, graduating college, changing jobs or buying a home.
What is particularly valuable about targeting according to life-stage events is that they dominate the consumer's mind and trigger a huge amount of spending, since these events are usually quite fundamental to their lives. They also need to be dealt with quite differently, since a soon-to-be-married browser looking at home ads may have a very different approach than a recent retiree looking for a home. Both want homes, but the kinds of homes that they want, and the kinds of messaging they are likely to be responsive to, are very different.
So far, most companies targeting products to home buyers, whether they are financial services or telecommunications or consumer electronics, deliver the same ads to everyone. What if they could segment them differently and deliver different ads? If you are trying to sell large screen televisions, new home buyers are a great target. Would you want to market to newlywed buyers the same way that you would market to recent retirees? Certainly not, though most have to today. If you had your preference, for the newlywed buyers, you would probably deliver ads highlighting the television's built-in DVR capabilities or its utility as a video gaming platform. For recent retirees, you would probably highlight the television's quality rating and perhaps its ease of set-up.
Creative mock-up for television ad targeting generic buyer
Artist's conceptualization: not a real ad
Creative mock-up for television ad targeting retirees
Artist's conceptualization: not a real ad
