Psychographic segmentation: how the OCEAN model helps to better understand the customer

This effect cannot be achieved by focusing solely on typical data such as age, gender, and location. It is necessary to understand how people think, what excites them, and what might repel them.

Let’s talk about the OCEAN model (or “Big Five”), which is based on five key personality traits and segments the audience not by numbers in a questionnaire, but by qualities, values, and habits. It opens the way to a deeper understanding of the client’s motivations, fears, and emotional triggers.

This approach is used in psychology, HR, coaching, and marketing. Big Five assessments even predict the outcomes of US presidents!

Why is demographics no longer sufficient?

Let’s imagine that we are selling a certain model of sneakers and have standard targeting: “men, 25–34, Kyiv, interested in sports.”

But someone will buy these sneakers because they are part of a new limited edition collection, and no one else has them yet. Some people value comfort and practicality. Others want to stand out and attract attention.

The same product, but completely different motivations to buy. If you make a single offer for everyone, some people will simply pass by. But if you tailor the message, the ad can reach everyone:

In other words, you can provide five variations of a single offer, adapted to the thinking style of customers from each segment.

How do websites read personality traits?

According to a study published in Frontiers in Psychology, user behavior on a website—navigation, clicks, time spent on a page—allows them to be statistically classified according to their OCEAN profile.

People with different personality traits interact differently with web interfaces:

Users’ digital behavior—navigation, clicks, searches, scrolling—all leave a psychographic trail.

Research by Michal Kosinski (University of Cambridge) has shown that a model based on Facebook likes can assess a person’s personality more accurately than their environment:

How does this affect real marketing? Back in 2017 a study (PNAS) showed that ads tailored to users’ personality traits can generate up to 40% more clicks and up to 50% more purchases compared to standard ads.

Since then, these approaches have only intensified: personalization is now based not only on interests, but also on behavior, context, and emotions.

The Cambridge Analytica experiment

In 2016, Cambridge Analytica conducted one of the largest influence experiments in history. They collected data from hundreds of thousands of users through Facebook tests, automatically calculated OCEAN profiles, formed psychographic segments, and created advertising messages for each personality type:

Despite criticism of accuracy and ethical issues, the fact remains: personalization based on psychotype was carried out on a large scale during the US election campaign.

Segmentation by thinking style

For example, Spotify doesn’t just count how many times a person has listened to a particular track.
He analyzes the psychological context: habits, rhythm of life, and even emotional state.

Those who are constantly looking for new albums, changing genres, and discovering experimental tracks are likely to be highly open to new things. On the other hand, users who play the same playlist every day at the same time are people with a clear behavioral structure and a tendency toward order.

This information helps Spotify personalize advertising messages.
Listeners who are calm or tired are not shown dynamic or emotionally aggressive advertising. Those who listen to energetic tracks while exercising may be offered products for sports or an active lifestyle.

Here’s another example: Patagonia brand that has built its business on the worldview of its customers. People who choose Patagonia are not just travelers or climbers. They are those who value environmental responsibility and strive to reduce consumption. That’s why Patagonia says, “Buy less, use longer.” The company does not target “young people with above-average incomes in large cities.” They appeal to a certain personality type: conscious, responsible, sustainable. And they build the entire brand ethic around this.

When Patagonia launched its campaign Don’t Buy This Jacketby directly urging people not to buy a new jacket if their old one still works, sales… only increased. Why? Because the message struck a chord with the target audience.

Magic? No. Technology + psychology.

The brain of a modern user is not a storage space for banners and weekly promotions. It is oversaturated: 10 seconds of irrelevant content, and attention is lost. Not because people have become impatient or do not want to see ads at all. But because they are tired of advertising spam and are annoyed by irrelevant offers.

That is why today brands must capture the moment, mood, and state of mind of potential customers.

In a world where every click is a micro-signal about personality, it is important not only to record actions, but also to understand what lies behind them.

And before you say anything to a client, you need to learn to understand them. That’s why high-quality and effective business analytics exist: at IWIS, we make sure that marketing has a solid foundation in the form of clean, transparent, and understandable data.