Most marketing briefs start with demographics: "Our target audience is 40-55 year old marketing managers and CTOs in SaaS companies earning £50k+."
And that's... fine. Demographics give you a good starting point.
But here's the thing: two people can share identical demographics and behave completely differently. Prince Charles and Ozzy Osbourne are both 60+ year-old wealthy divorced men with kids. Try creating content that appeals to both of them.
Good luck with that.
Demographics are very good at telling you who your audience is, but they don't tell you why they act. And understanding your audience's motivations is crucial for engaging them.
That's where psychographics in marketing come in. Understanding how your audience thinks, what drives them, and how they see the world lets you create content that genuinely resonates (and gets you results).
And for explainer videos, this psychological insight isn't just helpful. It's game-changing. Especially since we only have 60-90 seconds to engage.
Here's the difference in a nutshell.
Demographics (who) describe who your audience is: objective traits like age, gender, location, income, education level.
Psychographics (why) reveal why your audience behaves the way they do. This is the internal stuff: attitudes, values, interests, lifestyle choices, opinions, personalities, and aspirations.
The key insight:
Demographics tell you who buys, and psychographics tell you why they buy. Why is using both not only useful, but imperative for a successful marketing campaign? Because people make decisions based on emotion, then use logic to justify them.
So when you understand the emotional drivers behind choices, you can design a narrative that highly resonates with your audience—giving them both the motivation and reason to act.
We see demographic-only targeting in most briefs.
Unfortunately, producing an explainer video using a brief that broadly targets "SaaS marketing managers" or "nonprofit fundraisers" is likely to fall woefully short of engaging the audience. The video technically reaches the right group, but it's trying to relate to a generic persona that doesn't really exist.
Why does this happen?
Because by only looking at surface level demographics we never discover the audience who are most likely to engage with your message. Or in other words—we don't uncover how the audience actually think and relate to your produce/service.
And therefore, don't craft a script that feels like it's soeaking directly to them, and their view of the world.
We're not saying it'll be a bad video. You might even get a few compliments. But could it have been much more effective? Almost certainly.
When you understand how your audience feels, thinks, and makes decisions, everything shifts.
You discover the emotional triggers that matter. For example, maybe your audience isn't just looking for "project management software". Maybe they want to feel confident that nothing will fall through the cracks. That's a different story entirely.
You use their language. Not jargon. Not buzzwords. The words they use when they describe their problems, fears, and hopes. When you use their language and mirror back how they see the world, you'll get them leaning in and listening. This is incredibly potent for building interest and credibility in your message.
By understanding their psychographics, you'll also understand how they make decisions. Do they need social proof? Do they want to feel like early adopters? Are they motivated by avoiding failure or achieving success?
Psychographics give you the insight to speak directly to these needs. And that insight is exactly what drives engagement psychology in video marketing.
Nike could target "athletic 18-35 year-olds." Instead, they segment by psychographic traits.
The competitive achiever. The weekend warrior. The purposeful runner.
Their "Just Do It" campaigns speak to the psychology of determination and self-improvement, not to age, location, or job title.
The result? Brand loyalty that goes beyond functional benefits. Nike customers don't just buy shoes; they buy into an identity that aligns with their values.
Spotify doesn't just know you're a "25-year-old music listener."
They know you listen to focus music on weekday mornings, party playlists on Friday nights, and acoustic music when you're stressed. That psychographic insight powers features like Discover Weekly and Daily Mixes.
The result? User engagement that makes the platform feel personally curated. Their annual Spotify Wrapped campaign is essentially psychographic profiling turned into shareable content.
We recently worked with a pharmaceutical company launching a treatment for Crohn's disease. The demographic brief was clear: adults aged 25-55 with Crohn's disease. But demographics alone didn't tell us what we really needed to know.
Through psychographic research, we discovered that our ideal target audience had lived with their condition for years. They were highly informed of the science. Many had tried multiple treatments with limited success. Most were exhausted by side effects and wary of anything being pitched as a "new solution."
This gave us a incredibly strong foundation to build our narrative. Instead of creating a generic explainer video that introduced the treatment with simplified science, we:
It wasn't just another animated pharma video. It was a piece of content that spoke directly to the frustrations, hopes, and lived experiences of real people. And it worked so well because we stopped thinking in demographics and started thinking in human terms.
There's gold in having conversations with your ideal customers to reveal the emotional drivers behind their decisions. Consider arranging short 10-15 minute calls and ask:
Listen to the words they use. The stories they tell. The things they say they care about. That's the insight you need.
You can also supplement your interviews with behavioural insights. For example, look at your other data points and see what they reveal:
All of this helps you understand not just what they do, but why. These insights often reveal subtle psychological patterns, and even cognitive biases that shape behaviour.
If the options above feel a bit overwhelming, don't worry. An experienced animated video production company will want to dive into psychographic on their initial discovery call. They'll guide you through questions that will help reveal how your audience think, feel and act.
Here's our comprehensive guide to choosing the right explainer video partner.
Here are some questions you can consider to get into the mindset of your ideal audience. Don't worry if the answers don't come immediately. These questions are designed to sit quietly in your subconcious. The answer doesn't always come from data—sometimes it'll come from your expeirence and inuitiion. Trust this.
Ask yourself:
These are the questions we ask in every discovery call. Once you know the answers, everything else falls into place:
Demographics get your video in front of the right people. Psychographics creates the motivation to act.
Want to dive into psychographics for your audience? Let's discuss your project →
