Meet three people. All you know so far is that every one of them is exactly the same age: 35.
One of them just spent on
a family car, a cot, and a life-insurance policy.
Which of the three 35-year-olds was it?
Priya
35
Tom
35
Maya
35
Same age, three different lives. Now the shopping makes perfect sense:
Priya, 35
just had her first baby
a family car, a cot, and a life-insurance policy
Tom, 35
just went through a divorce
a deposit on a one-bed flat, and a dating-app subscription
Maya, 35
just quit to retrain
textbooks, a laptop, and a student railcard
The one thing you were given, their age, told you almost nothing. The three are 35 and live in completely different worlds. The life event told you everything: a first child, a divorce, a fresh start each reshape needs, budget, and identity at once (Elder, 1994).
This is why segmenting people by age band leaks money and meaning. A recent transition predicts behaviour far better than a birthday, and because lives are linked, the spending clusters around the household at the moment of change, not the lone individual.
One caution: transitions are also when people are most exposed. Helping someone through a change they have chosen to share is good service. Detecting a private one, a pregnancy, a divorce, a bereavement, from their data and targeting them at their most vulnerable is where it curdles into exploitation.