Forget the famous ‘stiff upper lip’, British people enjoy being the centre of attention twice as much as Americans, which goes against a lot of existing cultural stereotypes, according to new research.
Consumer insights and analytics company VisualDNA has scrutinised its psychographic data in order to compare UK and US consumers. The results show that country-specific psychological characteristics can be counter-intuitive.
Typically, advertisers use traditional demographic and location data to deliver personalised programmatic advertising to consumers online, but advertisers increasingly want to personalise advertising to an individual’s personality, rather than their age or location. VisualDNA has developed visual quizzes in order to measure personality and the below results are based on quizzes taken by over 40m people in the US and UK.
VisualDNA’s team of psychologists analysed the results of the respondents and found some surprising results.
Compared to Brits, Americans tend to be almost twice as moderated when it comes to their social interactions. Contrary to popular belief, Americans have a lower threshold for what they consider over the top and think of themselves more as listeners. Brits, on the other hand, value a bit more eccentricity and tend to enjoy being the centre of attention. They also enjoy storytelling and joking twice as much as Americans do.
Americans are also twice as much concerned with social harmony, being considerate and kind than their British counterparts. Both nationalities tend to be organised, hardworking, punctual and like when things go to plan. However, Brits have a 25% higher tendency to be spontaneous and enjoy a little bit of unexpectedness when it comes to travelling, shopping, eating out and having fun.
An interesting fact that surfaced that advertisers can take advantage of in their marketing strategy is that Brits tend to be fascinated by the latest trends and are on a constant search for stimulation. Therefore, Brits describe themselves as creative twice as much as Americans and have a stronger tendency to be curious about things. Americans tend to be more conservative in their tastes than Brits.
Jim Hodgkins, MD Marketing Services at VisualDNA said: “Knowing the ins and outs of cultural differences in personalities, brands can tailor their advertising accordingly rather than only focusing on demographics and behaviours. When comparing VisualDNA’s data on US and UK consumers, it becomes apparent that brands cannot just rely on stereotypes.”
VisualDNA is a scale provider of psychographic data, is available in over 150 platforms and has recently signed deals with major platforms such as Oracle and Adobe.
Using advanced algorithms and machine learning VisualDNA has developed a taxonomy of over 800 profile characteristics for 500m users globally. It is a UK market leader due to its trusted UK data which is cross referenced with financial data from CallCredit, and its global data has been certified by Nielsen OCR.