FECI is an acronym based upon the names of 4 broad archetypes found in a lot of consumer-facing sectors - Fanatics, Enthusiasts, Casuals and Indifferents.

It's a market segmentation method that positions consumers on an intuitive Fan Map to predict how much time, effort and money a potential customer is likely to invest within a specific market or field of interest. FECI segmentation takes careful account of the cultural and lifestyle disposition of a consumer, their appetite for new information and levels of innate interest or market knowledge prior to making a purchase decision.

The analysis process is driven by data from a wide range of sources including 1st party, market research, CRM, web content and social media. FECI segmentation establishes an intuitive Fan Map of market personas that provides nuanced and highly predictive explanations of consumer behaviour.

To understand the first principles of FECI segmentation let's take a look at the Fan Map illustration below. The central horizontal axis represents how 'engaged' a market or audience is with any given product category, media sector or individual brand. This reflects the level of passion specific consumers have for a particular product category or field of media content. For instance, is a person's passion for music, food or fashion all-consuming or do they display little or no interest in such things at all? 

The central axis also accounts for the level of innate motivation within a group to access, consume and pay for products within a brand category or media sector. For instance, is someone a heavy consumer with discriminating tastes who takes great care over what they consume, or a disinterested light consumer who can only be tempted if the price is right and access is stress-free?

At the left hand side of the axis are the 'Fanatics' and 'Enthusiasts'. These are people who invest almost crazy amounts of time, effort and money into their relationship with a specific market or field of interest. Over on the right are the 'Casuals' and 'Indifferents' - people with little or no interest in or engagement with the same category.

At a broad level The Fanatics are relatively small in number but represent the heaviest, most committed and profitable type of category consumer out there. Conversely, Casuals and Indifferents purchase less frequently and spend far less per head than the Fanatics and Enthusiasts, but thanks to their big population size represent a valuable high-volume market of light and irregular customers. This difference in market or audience size is represented by the Fan Map's funnel shape.

The Fan Map also helps us understand why a group is positioned above or below the central axis line. This usually represents the cultural disposition of a consumer group.

Consumer groups positioned above the main axis often exhibit a preference for brand and entertainment choices that reflect broad, consensual mainstream tastes. Choosing something ‘popular’ means it *must* be OK. In this instance consumers want to ‘fit in’ rather than ‘stand out’ and prefer brands that have earned mainstream validation and confer membership of a broader, often localised, shared cultural identity.

Conversely, consumer groups positioned below the main axis tend to be more culturally aspirational and prefer brands and content that confer status through socially validated taste. This means they are tuned to pick up on signals of authenticity and progressiveness, particularly when navigating broadly mainstream brand choices.

Colourtext has developed FECI segmentation models for a lot of great companies, but one of our favourites is the Music Fan Map segmentation we built for Warner Music Group. WMG created an incredible animated explainer video to announce the launch of the Fan Map project to everyone within the business. The video above provides a clear, real-world example of a FECI segmentation in action and how it helps a business like WMG connect better with a wider range of audiences.

We can create a FECI Segmentation Fan Map for your brand and market - contact us here.