[Jihye Choi's Trend 2024] In the Age of Omnivores, Who Is Your Consumer?

Parents Range from 20s to 50s
Sharp Increase in Female Sports Spectators
Genderless Fashion Gains Popularity
From Market Segmentation by Age and Occupation
to Inferring Targets by Preferences and Situations

There are many people living lives completely different from the stereotypes of the groups they belong to: a manager in his 50s who applied for parental leave, a high school student earning pocket money through a Smart Store, a woman in her 30s who lives just waiting for weekend futsal games, and an asset owner who stops by Daiso to buy recommended products from YouTube. The term "omnivore" literally means an organism that eats both plants and animals, but here it refers to a growing trend of consumers who have their own unique consumption styles that are not bound by given stereotypes. Let's take a look at some representative omnivore phenomena.

One notable change is the breakdown of age-related stereotypes. Parents attending postpartum care centers, daycare centers, kids cafes, and elementary school entrance ceremonies are mixed across ages from their 20s to their 50s. As more people delay childbirth, reactions such as "I thought I would be the oldest, but I was surprised I wasn't," or conversely, "I was surprised to be the youngest," are common. According to Shinhan Card Big Data Research Institute, examining the age distribution of kids cafe users over two years as of the first half of 2024, the proportions of people in their 20s and 30s decreased by 1.7% and 6.7% respectively, while those in their 40s and 50s to 60s increased by 6.9% and 1.5% respectively.

The saying "there is a right time for studying" is also losing its persuasiveness. It is no longer surprising to meet people in their 30s who continue graduate studies while working or after retirement, or who newly enroll in undergraduate programs to change careers. Universities are also adapting to demographic changes. Yeongsan University in Busan, which faces an aging population with 22.6% elderly as of 2023, has decided to open a Senior Model Department reflecting the demand from the senior demographic. This is a four-year bachelor's program, the first of its kind, including practical training to become a model as well as liberal arts courses such as humanities, rather than a short-term program.

Another important demographic factor, gender, is also being influenced by the omnivore trend. It is commonly assumed that most sports spectators are men, but those who have visited baseball stadiums recently will notice a very different scene. According to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), 54.4% of professional baseball ticket buyers in the first half of 2024 were women, an increase of 3.7 percentage points from the previous year.

Moving on to fashion, the rise of 'gender-fluid' or 'genderless' fashion over the past few years has led male celebrities to wear items typically considered feminine, such as skirts, floral patterns, and clutches, attracting attention. Recently, fueled by the popularity of sports, the 'blockcore' style has become popular among women, reinforcing the gender-fluid trend. Blockcore is a combination of the British slang 'Bloke' meaning man and 'Normcore' meaning ordinary style, referring to fashion styled like men wearing soccer uniforms as everyday clothes, i.e., sports uniform style fashion.

Fashion companies are responding to these consumer changes by removing gender boundaries. For example, the brand 'Dunst' has eliminated gender distinctions such as 'men's jackets' and 'women's shirts' from their product categories, instead categorizing by sizes like XS, S, M, L, XL. According to the brand, women who want an oversized fit wear size Large (L), while men who want a slim fit wear Small (S) or Medium (M), making gender distinctions meaningless.

When analyzing markets, it is common to narrow down target consumer groups based on demographic characteristics such as age, gender, occupation, residential area, education level, and income, a process called market segmentation, and the resulting groups are called segments. For example, generations like X, Millennial, Z, and Alpha are representative segments used to classify consumers. The concept of segments has been fundamental in marketing because it assumes that consumers within a segment share similar lifestyles, values, and preferences. However, as individual tastes become extremely diversified, differences between groups are shrinking while individual differences are growing.

So how should segmentation change in the omnivore era? Suppose you are marketing a refrigerator suitable for newlyweds. In the past, you would target the female segment in their late 20s to early 30s, who are most likely to purchase household items, select the model they prefer most, and advertise through channels they frequently use. But this approach reflects a stable market where products, main customer groups, and the advertising and sales channels used by these groups are linked like a chain.

In the omnivore era, potential customers cannot be easily defined by demographic segments nor limited to specific channels. Therefore, to predict consumer behavior, it is necessary to define consumers closely using new variables such as lifestyle, values, preferences, mood, and situation. To find consumers who will buy a refrigerator as a household item, instead of approaching by age, new situational indicators are needed. For example, targeting should be 'inferred' based on criteria such as people who have ordered wedding invitations, newly joined wedding preparation communities, or are looking for moving-in information. Instead of broad demographic segments, an individualized approach that finds targets through traces left by consumers is necessary. Consumers are no longer typical. It is time to discard old stereotypes and redefine common sense.

Research Fellow, Consumer Trend Analysis Center, Seoul National University

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.