B01CBEH209 Customers Profiles and Likings Impact on Industries

Customers’ profiles and likings can be expected to have a notable impact on several industries such as vacation, cosmetics and pre-cooked food. Competitiveness of industries will depend a lot on their abilities to match up with diverse choices for products and services. Some of the potential demographic trends are aging population, population growth of multi-generational families and increased life expectancy (Foxall 2015). The study aims at discussing the impact of a number of demographic trends in chosen industries.

Part A 

Understanding the demography

Consumer behavior

            According to Motivation-Need Theory, marketers aim to create an artificial urgency to buy products (Cantallops and Salvi 2014). In the context of the travel industry, marketers use a variety of motivating factors like presenting the location as the highly adventurous place to visit. Similarly, cosmetic industry uses a different motivating factor like a particular cosmetic is good to keep skin look healthier. Ready-to-eat foods industry uses the terms like fresh, healthier and tasty.

Longer lifespan of senior citizen

The average life expectancy is not the same everywhere in the world. Australia is one of the rarest countries to have a high lifespan of senior citizens. A high-life span can be a prospect considering the aging population as a serious threat. However, this is also dependent on their role and contribution for a wide number of industries (Haight, Quan-Haase and Corbett 2014).   

Baby boomers approaching close to retirement but with money to spend

            Baby boomers who have money to spend can be a prospect to the innumerous industries provided that such industries have enough reasons to create the attraction. Innovation will hold the key to fulfilling the diverse choices for products and services (Ameer et al. 2017).     

Generation Y with a growing family household and a huge mortgage

            They are probably the toughest of demographics in regards to selling products and services to them. Generation Y with a growing family household and also with a huge mortgage can still be the opportunity for a few industries like cosmetics. These people once they establish a skincare routine, they remain mostly constant with it (Solomon et al. 2017).  

Smaller family unit and “Single Adult” households

            The consumption pattern for both smaller family unit and ‘Single Adult’ will be different. The impact of ‘single adult households’ will be more on pre-cooked foods, leisure time, cosmetic etc. Smaller family units will have their high impacts on leisure, pre-cooked foods and others (Zeugner-Roth, Žabkar and Diamantopoulos 2015).

Usage of various products by the various demographic groups

Vacation in Australia and New Zealand

            The vacation industry is expected to witness a growth due to an increased travelling of female business travelers and travelers those aged over 65. Senior citizens with longer lifespan are also expected to boost the holiday travelling. These people are mostly the solo travelers and like to spend such moments in ways that younger do. ‘Generation Y’ are the one group that travel destinations have failed to attract.

It is due to their family household size and a huge mortgage. A smaller family unit is expected to potentially drive the vacation industry in Australia and New Zealand. This is because they want to spend some time out of their busy schedules. Travelling for the family unit is a resource to make fun, refresh their mood and enjoy some moment together. A person living in a status of ‘single adult’ household can travel for business, education etc. They are also the potential travelers (Tarrant et al. 2014).

Products and services (Gillovic and McIntosh 2015)

• Accommodation services for female business travelers
• Accommodation facilities and entertaining rides for people with a higher lifespan
• Accommodations, rides and visiting popular places for baby boomers
• Consumption pattern for Generation Y with a large family household and huge mortgage will be more or less similar to baby boomers

Pre-cooked food

            Pre-cooked or prepared foods can be said to have a diverse market base. Those who live alone or in a family or in a household pattern, they all have different reasons to get attracted towards it. However, the consumption pattern for all these groups can be a bit different. A family unit may be looking to it on an occasional basis whereas a single adult household can largely rely on such foodstuffs.

Such a tendency of single living person can be due to their busy work schedules. Baby boomers are not the regular customers for ready-to-eat foods irrespective of their household, income and mortgage status. Seniors with longer lifespan have high concerns for their health. They mostly consume the healthy foods. On the other hand, prepared foods may or may not be healthier as such foods are prepared to focus a lot on innovative recipes than using nutritional elements (Evans and Redmond 2016).  

Products

 It can be of the variety of kinds depending on the local culture. Some of these foods are Arepas in Colombia, Bunny chow in South Africa, sandwiches & burgers in Australia (Tamilarasu and Kumar 2015).

Cosmetic

Demographic factors do also impact the cosmetic industry. This is an industry where a change in trends happens to be at faster rate. However, once customers are convinced with their choice of product, they become a constant user. Different people have a distinguished set of reasons for using the cosmetic products. Baby boomers who can afford to spend on cosmetic products use it to keep them look younger for a larger span of time. On the other hand, an adult can use it for several other reasons like to make their face look brighter or protecting it from the cold and the sunlight. In spite of serving all such needs, it continuously faces challenges in the form of increasingly growing competition and the changing consumer behaviour (Rekha and Gokila 2015).

Products and services

Some of the products and services are as listed below: (Musa 2014)

• Skincare creams
• Facial masks to make the skin look brighter
• Personal care creams
• Natural skin care
• Electrotherapy
• Female cosmetic coalitions
• Body art
• Baking
• Permanent makeup

Part B

Impact of demographic trends on the chosen industries

            Apart from the demographic groups as discussed above, ‘Millennials' are one of the most important consumer generations.

In the context of the travel industry, they are the potential groups. They do not have just one reason to travel but a lot. Some of them love doing adventurous things or going for an adventurous ride. To such people, travelling to Australia in particular to Tasmania can be an unforgettable experience. They can enjoy doing camping, trekking and a lot more (Vila, Darcy and González 2015). A huge number of Millennials are availing and intend to avail higher studies in abroad locations such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and others.

The number of foreign students in these locations is growing significantly. The trend is influencing these countries to spend more on improving the infrastructure to increase their attraction capacity. Millennials are working in different countries to avail better career opportunities. Those who are financially stable are not limiting themselves to their local countries but are moving to different foreign locations (Skinner, Sarpong and White 2018).

The cosmetic industry is also at benefits from this group of customers. They use cosmetics for various purposes like to protect their skin from sunlight and cold, to look brighter and fairer and for keeping the skins healthier. However, they get easily shuffled between different brands in search of getting better products. It means innovative products will keep on attracting these customers (Nash and Gell 2018).

            Pre-cooked foods are hugely popular among Millennials. They love to have it when they are in college and university, at the workplace and at any kind of social gathering. Actually, they are turning away from being just the occasional consumers to regular. They become a constant user once they are satisfied with the product (Linnhoff et al. 2017). However, innovation will be a key factor here again to attract such customers.

Conclusion

            In summary, this can be said that demographic factors have a significant impact on consumers' decision-making for travel destinations, cosmetic products and pre-cooked foods. However, the consumption pattern is indeed variably different for different industries. Vacation in Australia and New Zealand have opportunities in the form of Millennials, Baby Boomers with spending capacity, female business travelers and single living person. Cosmetics has opportunities from Millennials, Baby Boomers both nearing their retirement and longer lifespan, small family unit and others. Ready-to-eat foods are sellable between Millennials, ‘single adult household’, and baby boomers nearing to retirement.

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