�Юлия Жилкина, Moscow (2026)

16/09/2026

✨ I have already written here about the value of reconstructing the decision journey as a complete path - instead of simply asking, in isolation, why someone bought a certain product.

Understanding what happened along that path is important: where the person looked for information, what they compared, which alternatives they considered, who they talked to, when they moved forward, stepped back or changed direction.

But there is an earlier layer that makes all the difference.
💡 People do not start making decisions from scratch.

When a decision becomes active, they already bring previous experiences, expectations, beliefs about the category, criteria, references and known alternatives - as well as an idea, even if not always fully conscious, of what they consider trustworthy, appropriate or acceptable.

Without understanding this starting point, we can describe the journey, but not necessarily explain why it happened the way it did.

And that difference matters a lot.

▪️ One thing is to know that the person went through A, B and C.
▪️ Another is to understand why A caught their attention, why B worked as validation, why C was rejected, and what needed to be present for a certain alternative to be perceived as relevant.

This is where research starts to generate real strategic direction.

The goal is not simply to “make the consumer buy”.

➡️ It is to identify which parts of the decision process can actually be influenced and, from there, understand where there is real space to act, what role that action needs to play, and what needs to be communicated, demonstrated or proven - and in what way - for that action to have an effect.

The journey shows the path.
But the starting point helps explain why that path took that particular shape.
And very often, the possibility of influencing a decision begins long before the active search.

14/09/2026

⭐️ When I start talking about segmentation, I hear this quite often:
“Yes, yes, of course. We already have a segmentation.”

The thing is, “segmentation” can mean very different things.

➡️ It can be a customer base segmentation built around behavior. We know what people do, but not necessarily what sits behind that behavior.
➡️ It can be a segmentation created internally by the company, without research. It may be a good hypothesis about customers - but it is still a hypothesis.
➡️ It can be a segmentation based on qualitative research, but built around just a few more visible and superficial differences.

All of these can be called segmentation.
But for me, strategic segmentation needs to do more than simply divide an audience into groups.

💡 It needs to explain.

It needs to explain how the logic within each segment works, what structures people’s priorities, how they see the category, what their decisions are based on, and why certain choices make sense to them.

💡 It needs to lead somewhere for the business.

Which segments should we prioritize?
How should we position ourselves for each of them?
What does this change in our marketing strategy?
And in our communication?

💡 One more thing. When segmentation is built around deeper needs and priorities, it also tends to have a much longer strategic life. Products change, new competitors appear, trends come and go - but those deeper needs do not change at the same speed.

—————
At some point, I realized that, besides formalizing and registering my methodology, I should probably give it a name of its own too - otherwise it would just get lumped together with everything else called “segmentation”. 😂

That’s how I arrived at the name MQR Needs Logic™.
(I’ll share more about it in the next posts.)

14/09/2026

⭐️ Quando começo a falar de segmentação, escuto bastante:
“Sim, sim, claro. A gente já tem segmentação.”

Só que “segmentação” pode significar coisas muito diferentes.

➡️ Pode ser uma segmentação da base de clientes, construída a partir do comportamento. Sabemos o que essas pessoas fazem, mas não necessariamente o que está por trás desse comportamento.
➡️ Pode ser uma divisão criada internamente pela própria empresa, sem pesquisa. Pode até ser uma boa hipótese sobre os clientes - mas continua sendo uma hipótese.
➡️ Pode ser uma segmentação construída a partir de pesquisa qualitativa, mas baseada em poucas diferenças mais visíveis e superficiais.

Tudo isso pode ser chamado de segmentação.
Mas, para mim, uma segmentação estratégica precisa fazer mais do que simplesmente dividir o público em grupos.

💡 Ela precisa explicar.

Explicar como funciona a lógica das pessoas dentro de cada segmento, o que organiza suas prioridades, como elas enxergam a categoria, com base em que tomam decisões e por que determinadas escolhas fazem sentido para elas.

💡 Isso precisa levar a algum lugar para o negócio.

Quais segmentos são prioritários?
Como queremos nos posicionar para cada um deles?
O que isso muda na estratégia de marketing?
E na comunicação?

💡 Mais uma coisa. Quando a segmentação é construída a partir de necessidades e prioridades mais profundas, ela também tende a ser muito mais duradoura. Produtos mudam, novos concorrentes aparecem, tendências vêm e vão - mas essas necessidades não mudam na mesma velocidade.

—————
Em algum momento, percebi que além de formalizar e registrar minha metodologia seria melhor também dar a ela um nome próprio para não confundir as coisas, né? 😂

Foi assim que cheguei ao nome MQR Needs Logic™.
(vou contar mais sobre isso nos próximos posts)

14/09/2026

⭐️ Very often, when a company decides to run a segmentation study, the task seems clear:
we need to divide the target audience into meaningful groups.

The problem is that there is often much less clarity around an earlier question:
what, exactly, should that segmentation be based on?

When that logic is not clear, it is easy to build segments around the most visible differences:

➡️ women with children and little time
➡️ younger people without children
➡️ heavy users
➡️ occasional users
➡️ more rational people
➡️ more emotional people

All of these may describe real differences.
But they do not necessarily explain a segment.

❗️ Because usage frequency, age or sociodemographic profile can be useful for describing a customer base. But in strategic qualitative segmentation, they should not define the segments on their own.

What we are looking for is the underlying logic of needs and priorities behind the behavior. And that logic does not necessarily follow purchase frequency, age or any other more visible characteristic.

Two people can use a category with the same frequency for completely different reasons.
And two people with the same sociodemographic profile can have very different priorities, trade-offs and ways of choosing.

💡 That is why good segmentation needs to answer:
why do these people operate the way they do?
what structures their priorities?
how do they relate to the category?
and what should the company do differently with each group?

For me, truly strategic segmentation needs to reconstruct the deeper and more coherent logic of each segment.
That is the kind of question behind MQR Needs Logic™ - a strategic needs-based segmentation methodology.

09/09/2026

💭 Something I notice quite often when communicating with other consultancies - whether in research or sometimes in strategy:

many people start devaluing their own work before the client has even asked.

They send the first proposal - and already include a discount.

The client has not said it is expensive.
They have not asked for a discount.
Sometimes, they have not even confirmed the final scope yet.

But the discount is already there.

❓ And what does that communicate?

First: that maybe the original price was not that real to begin with.

Second: that there is probably still room to push further.

They start the negotiation by weakening their own position.

For what? 🤔

01/09/2026

💭 Sometimes, when talking to colleagues, I hear something like:

“I love qualitative research. I love doing interviews and hearing people’s stories.”

It’s great to enjoy what you do.
But I find it interesting when that’s where the focus stays.

❗️ Interviews aren’t done to hear stories.

They have very clear objectives, very specific research questions and, in the end, they need to lead to conclusions and recommendations.

Listening to people is the means.
It’s not the goal.

28/08/2026

A segmentation can describe groups without necessarily explaining the logic behind them.

That is exactly the kind of question behind MQR Needs Logic™, my strategic needs-based segmentation methodology.

I’ll share a more detailed post about this here soon 😉

25/08/2026

💭 Marketing, Product, CX…

Almost everyone says something similar:

“Yes, we have already studied this.”
“Our process is structured.”
“We know our customers very well.”
“This has already been mapped.”
“It works well.”

Then you start using the product or service as a customer and think:

wait… there are some significant problems here.

And sometimes we are not talking about an extremely rare situation or an exception that would be impossible to predict.

We are talking about problems in very basic processes.

On one hand, I think this is absolutely normal.

No company can build a perfect experience. There will always be points of friction, inconsistency, or breakdown.

But on the other hand, there is a big difference between a company that keeps looking, researching, listening to customers, monitoring complaints, and trying to understand where processes break…

and a company that has decided it “already knows”.

Because it probably does not know everything.

The problem starts when it stops wanting to find out.

20/08/2026

💭 I prepared a post about different social classes in Brazil and why it’s important to take them into account when we study consumers in LATAM.

So this time I decided to prepare a Mexico edition 🪅

Honestly, this comparison was not easy. Each country has its own way of defining socioeconomic levels. The criteria are different, the classifications are different, and the type of publicly available data is different too.
So we cannot simply take the Brazilian logic and apply it mechanically to Mexico.

💡 But the warning is still clear:
A/B classes (the highest ones) matter.
But for many categories, especially mass-market categories, they are not enough to explain the whole market.

🤔 While preparing this post, I noticed something interesting:
there seems to be much less open information about consumption by social classes in Mexico.
Maybe because almost all the data remains inside paid panels, private reports and internal company studies.
Or maybe social levels receive less explicit attention in public market analysis than they do in Brazil.

If the second explanation is true, then many companies operating in Mexico may be underestimating how much socioeconomic level shapes consumption.
And for me, this is a very important point.
Because social level is not just a recruitment criterion.
It can change access, channels, frequency, price sensitivity, trade-offs, digital behavior and the meaning of value.

For luxury, high-end services or very premium categories, A/B may be exactly the right focus.
But for FMCG, personal care, home care, food, pharmacy, affordable beauty, mid-market retail and family products, the center of gravity may sit elsewhere.
That is where C+, C, C- and sometimes D+ become essential to understand real consumption.

Not only who can buy.
But how people buy.
What they prioritize.
What they postpone.
What they substitute.
And how they define value.

-———
I would be very interested to hear your perspective.
❓ Does this match what you know or think about Mexico? Did any of the numbers surprise you? Or do you see the role of socioeconomic levels differently?

�Юлия Жилкина

16/09/2026

14/09/2026

14/09/2026

14/09/2026

09/09/2026

01/09/2026

28/08/2026

25/08/2026

20/08/2026

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