Targeting your photo products for a typical US household: Parents with kids? 

Think again.

With a “bomb cyclone meets atmospheric river” brewing here in Northern California and my gutters now properly cleaned, I got some time to ponder the US Census Data that shows how the US household composition has changed in the last 60 years. 

Our photo industry has a long tradition of photo products – from cameras to photography services to software to photo print products – targeting households with kids. Not only are their needs pretty obvious (memory preservation and to some extent gifting), but these households were typical, i.e. most numerous. 

But times have changed, and are a-changin’. Pretty dramatically. While it’s tempting to continue to focus on the household types one has always focused on, it won’t hurt to do a reality check of where we are these days in terms of household composition and the direction things are trending. 

So here it goes: a few things about household composition that stand out in my opinion:

Unlike 60 years ago, households without children are now in the majority (58% + a few % points from the Other category). 

In fact, the percentage of households with children has dropped by half compared to what they were back in 1960 (now just 25% + a few % points from the Other category):

Source: US Census Bureau

[The US Census Bureau defines “other households” as those that include cohabiting, unmarried couples (2/3 of them being childless), people who live with other relatives, and nonfamily households like housemates/roommates].

What caused the “no kids” household category to grow so much? 

It’s not an increase in married couples who opted to not have kids (that stayed about the same) – it’s the growing share of single person households without kids. With that increase, the old picture of a typical household consisting of a married couple with kids has dramatically crumbled of the years (from 44% to 18%). 

There are now substantially more single person households without kids than married couple households with kids. In 1960 it was very much the opposite.

Source: US Census Bureau

Finally, this graph shows the trends over time:

Source graph 

Where does this all leave us?

When pondering your target photo or video solution customers or defining their persona, it’s worth asking yourself: 

Are your marketing campaigns or products addressing the same old household types that traditionally everyone in our industry targeted: married couples with kids? And is that still the best market to go after? If so, how can you differentiate your offering enough to successfully compete in this well-served but declining market? If you can… heck, there are still an estimated 22 million of those households in the US to monetize! 

Or are you missing out on opportunities for the traditionally less targeted households of single person or married couple households without kids? How can you differentiate your photo or video solutions from what the large social media networks, who very much target these household types, already offer?

Happy pondering!

Best,

Hans Hartman 

And a few more things...

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