Marketers Boil 320 Million People Down to 16 Consumer ‘Eurostyles’

Business executives take note. If you want to keep customers once Europe’s trade barriers come down, you must learn to tell a Euro-dandy from a Euro-vigilante.

That is the message from a panel of 15 European marketing agencies which says it has pigeonholed all 320 million European Community citizens into 16 consumer profiles, or “Eurostyles.”

“If you are wise, you are prepared for the European market,” said Dominique Rajewski of GkF Belgium, one of 15 marketing firms on the panel.

“Whether they like it or not, everyone in market research now has to conduct multinational surveys, because the market is being thrown open,” she said.

The EC’s plans to dismantle all internal trade restrictions by 1992 pose a big problem for many businesses: how to compete beyond national borders while defending market share against invaders.

The panel’s answer is to pick out the social strands that weave a common EC fabric, from the wealthy conservatism of the Euro-gentry--”golfers”--to the frustration of the impoverished Euro-olvidados, Europe’s forgotten people.

The classifications are based on interviews conducted in 11 EC countries plus Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. Marketers asked 24,000 people hundreds of questions on topics ranging from “my philosophy” and “my political program” to the issues of work and money.

Researchers sifted through this hoard of information in search of the overlaps and correlations to form recognizable “Eurostyles.”

The 16 categories are mapped onto a graph that sorts them according to their openness to change, how important property is to them and whether they behave emotionally or rationally.

The Euro-strict, for example, are “decidedly moralistic with a strong repressive trait,” the panel says. They view the Europe of 1992 as “a united community in the struggle against communism.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Euro-pioneers are open-minded, environmentally aware and keen to change the world.

In between come such categories as the Euro-squadra, who have a strong sense of physical pleasure, and the Euro-rockies, who are “very ego-centered” and want to make money.

The Euro-dandies, the youngest group, want above all to show off. Appearances count most for them. Euro-vigilantes, conformists who are frustrated at their lack of spending power, are skeptical about unfamiliar things.