A new way of segmenting customers. (New Products).

Americans are individuals, as the micro-marketing gurus have been telling us for some years now. On the other hand--and let's face this head-on--they aren't as individual as all that. We all have common touch points that permit us to make contact with, and identify with, each other. When it comes to marketing, the trick is to find those touch points.

There are, of course, all sorts of ways to divide the population into categories for marketing purposes: demographically and psychographically being two of the most popular methods. Now Acxiom Corp., Downers Grove, ILL, an international information management firm, proposes another method, Personicx, which it calls the "next evolution" in customer segmentation.

The approach is to divide households into "life stage segments"--70 of them in all, corresponding not only to socioeconomic and demographic criteria but also to the experiences that member-households have undergone in the past. This "multi-dimensional" process, says Acxiom, permits marketers to target audiences more precisely than with other approaches.

"By marrying academic findings and analytical acumen with the wealth of data available in Acxiom's InfoBase, Personicx is a segmentation system at least one order higher in terms of its accuracy, relevance and longevity," wrote consultant Robin Page in a white paper prepared for Acxiom earlier this year. Acxiom says Page was principal architect for the PRIZM Lifestyle Cluster system during his tenure as marketing director for Claritas Corp.

"The U.S. is dynamic and ever-changing," says Acxiom company leader Charles D. Morgan. "People get married, have children, change residences, enter retirement; all of these things impact their consumer behavior. Personicx helps marketers to capitalize on these dynamics."

The approach is applied to your customer database and provides a common framework for comparing customers with your product mix and organization, the company says. It can also be used with syndicated survey data such as the Simmons National Consumer Survey, permitting marketers to apply information on shopping and media preferences, financial products and other services.

For more information, go to www.acxiom.com/personicx.