Life events that change people’s consumption. An update of Holmes & Rahe’s Readjustment Rating Social Scale (1967) and its marketing opportunities

Scientific Study from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: 14/20, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (ULB), course: Master in Management Sciences, language: English, abstract: Different statements, different reactions. What level of readjustment and personal behaviour do you think those life events bring to you just after they occurred? The answer already exists in an analysis made in 1967 by Thomas H. Holmes and Richard H. Rahe. We are now in 2016, is it really possible to imagine only one second that people from today exactly react the same as in 1967? This paper shows the change in the ranking, the evolution of grades in 46 years and the place of new life events that now happen in 2013 and where not present in 1967. The methodology basically follows the original one but improves the precision and diversifies the questions to provide a more precise analysis. As the original scale was established for medicinal purposes, this one tends to link the results with some marketing theories applicable to people for whom life events show some relevant change in their life through some short interviews, made with randomly selected respondents. Dear companies, use those findings to adapt and improve your targeting and strategies.