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Moving Minds: Unlocking the spending power of home movers
Behind every rational reason for moving to a new home, there are powerful emotional needs to be met. Moving Minds helps us to understand these needs, and how they make movers behave.
Dan Neville
Strategy Director CogentEvery year, around 11% of the UK’s adult population move to a new home, according to a Royal Mail Mover Marketing datasheet. And it’s an ‘inertia-buster’ that changes our spending behaviours dramatically. In the first 12 months after moving, we spend roughly the same on home improvements as we do in the five years that follow.
This equates to thousands spent by each mover on home improvements and move-related purchases in the year after moving. Indeed, around £16bn of UK consumer spend each year is attributed to people moving home, home movers being defined as people who are currently in the process of moving or have moved in the last three months.
This massive increase in consumers’ propensity to spend represents a huge opportunity for brands seeking greater return on their marketing budgets. Understanding why people move is the key to unlocking their spending potential.
Home movers have proven a fertile group to target for some time, and demographic segmentation has helped us reach broad groups of them in an accurate, timely, and rational way. But demographic and lifestyle data only tell us half the story about purchase preference, which we felt left a piece missing from the puzzle.
Cogent partnered with Ragdoll Research and engaged Professor Richard Crisp, Head of the Department of Psychology at Durham University to create Moving Minds, a ground-breaking attitudinal segmentation study that groups home movers into eight tribes according to their move motivations. It explores what these motivations tell us about each tribe’s mindset and investigates the behavioural psychology behind how this impacts decision making, and therefore, purchasing behaviour.
Behind every rational reason for moving to a new home, there are powerful emotional needs to be met. Moving Minds helps us to understand these needs, and how they make movers behave. By identifying the link between these behaviours and purchase decisions, Moving Minds is a powerful tool for brands to unlock home movers’ potential to spend.
MEET THE TRIBES
Seekers
Size of segment: 10%
Who are they? Seekers are looking to express their true identity. They feel isolated from their peers and this impacts on their self-confidence. So, in moving home, they’re seeking an area with a community that better reflects them and their values.
What are their behaviours? Fundamentally their decisions are about giving them a greater sense of self-worth.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Social Identity Theory: In a direct sense, Seekers should therefore be attracted to goods and services that dress their new home, internally and externally, to maximal effect, within their budgetary constraints. They will likely be quite house proud. Indirectly, they may be attracted to goods and services, and / or marketing that supports that broader sense of a new beginning.
Nurturers
Size of segment: 19%
Who are they? For Nurturers, the home is a critical part of ensuring their family is happy and contented, so they need a home with enough space for their family to develop and grow. However, their absolute focus on family places a huge draw on their own time, energy and income, meaning they have little quality time to themselves.
What are their behaviours? Nurturers often default to decisions based on what they’ve seen their peers do, or what their peers recommend. These mental shortcuts enable quick and effective decisions, freeing up time and energy to deal with all the challenges family life throws at them.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Fast Thinking: Past buying behaviour can become a strong predictor of future buying behaviour, as they tend to stick with brands they know. But if they’re buying something new, role-models may become reliable guides for what to buy.
Couplers
Size of segment: 11%
Who are they? Couplers are individuals who are ready to take the next step in their relationship. They’re committing to their first home together and to creating a new joint identity.
What are their behaviours? With a huge amount of emotional capital being invested into a new relationship, decision making is firmly focussed around building their interconnections, interconnections they need to bring them closer together as a couple and to make them harder to pull apart.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Investment Model: There’ll be a tendency to go ‘out with the old’ (from former single lives) and ‘in with the new’, anything that can be refreshed and redefined as a shared symbol of The Couple.
Idealist
Size of segment: 8%
Who are they? Idealists have a long-held desire for a more tranquil and peaceful way of life. For many this means an escape to the country, but for others, it’s simply reaching a home in the leafy suburbs.
What are their behaviours? Idealists have a very clear sense of where they are in life, but more importantly where they want to be. This gap analysis is incredibly important because it acts as a powerful motivation for them to focus their decisions on what will help them achieve their ultimate end goal.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Self-Discrepancy Theory: According to Self-Discrepancy Theory, the psychological distance between one’s actual identity and ideal identity can be a powerful motivator. The bigger the actual-ideal gap, the greater the ‘cognitive dissonance’ experienced by the individual, and so the greater the motivation to close the gap. They’re likely to have a good idea of what products will do this, having perhaps coveted them for many years. More generally, having reached such a pivotal life goal, they potentially have lots of time to make considered decisions in other areas of their life.
Showhomers
Size of segment: 16%
Who are they? Showhomers are affluent individuals, relative to their peer group, who enjoy entertaining, travel, the outdoors, fashion and style, essentially the best of what life can afford them. They take great pride in their personal and financial success, of which their home is the most overt external projection.
What are their behaviours? Showhomers generally have a high level of self-esteem and maintaining this is a powerful motivator behind their decision making. However, their self-esteem is not simply derived from their success, but from believing others perceive them to be successful. Their need for recognition means they gravitate towards products and services they believe will demonstrate an elevated status. With more time and money available to them, they can afford to be more selective about the decisions they make.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Social Comparison Theory: Showhomers have achieved a great deal in life, exemplified by their affluence. As homes are a great source of identity-based self-esteem, Showhomers will likely choose the best furnishings to demonstrate their status and success.
Balancers
Size of segment: 11%
Who are they? Balancers tend to be young professionals with no kids; their main motivation for moving is usually a change in jobs, which results in a requirement to relocate.
What are their behaviours? Balancers have an adaptable mindset which means they tend to see themselves as early adopters. And while their desire to avoid long term commitments means they naturally veer towards better over best, access over ownership is appealing as it allows them to avoid this compromise.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Dynamic Mindset: Products that appeal to Balancers are likely to be premium quality (no time or patience for things to break down), but that can be easily replaced or upgraded when an improved version comes along (think smartphones, TVs, cars)
Pragmatists
Size of segment: 13%
Who are they? Pragmatists’ main motivation to move is reducing their cost of living, often through downsizing. They’re looking for something lower maintenance and that costs less to run.
What are their behaviours? Pragmatists adopt a very considered approach to decision making; they are inherently more rational and careful about how, when and where they spend their money. Only after detailed research and careful consideration will they arrive at a final, value-based decision.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Systematic Thinking: The human mind has two modes of thinking: ‘Fast’ for when time and mental space is in short supply, and ‘Systematic’ for when there’s time to really analyse all the facts. In contrast to some other tribes, Pragmatists are more likely to engage in systematic thinking when it comes to purchasing. They have the time and motivation to get buying decisions just right.
Reconnectors
Size of segment: 11%
Who are they? Reconnectors have a desire to move nearer to family and friends, so they can re-establish closer emotional ties and build up an extended support network.
What are their behaviours? Reconnectors tend to have more time to think and, because they are value conscious, they adopt a structured approach to decision making. However, they are also relatively affluent, which means they will look for the best they can afford.
How does this drive their purchase decisions? Systematic Thinking & Investment Model: Reconnectors are looking for products and services that strengthen ties and create shared memories (to create ‘psychological investment’). They are also less concerned by price and be willing to spend that little more for the perfect product (and those perfect memories).
MOVING MINDS
Visit Cogent’s showcase to download the full report.
About
Dan has 20 years’ experience leading campaign strategy across a range of client audiences and sectors. A strategic and integrated thinker, he is focused on ensuring insight sits at the heart of our client’s campaigns to drive genuine engagement with the target audience. He has worked across a number of sectors, delivering high profile B2C & B2B campaigns for the likes of Yorkshire Water, Police Mutual, Grant Thornton, GSK and Dominos.
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