Global Consumer Segmentation

I led Avast’s global consumer segmentation “evolution” programme – a multi‑phase initiative to move the business from a largely product‑centric model toward a shared, customer‑centric view that could be used across marketing, product, commercial and CX teams.

Context and brief

Avast was relaunching its brand and introducing Avast One, shifting from standalone products to a broader security and privacy service. The business needed a future‑proof, needs‑based segmentation that:

Worked both in the external market and on our own user base
Underpinned brand relaunch, proposition development and personalization
Could be easily understood and adopted across teams

I wrote the insight project brief, defined the business questions, success criteria, and deliverables (including a statistically robust segmentation, “golden questions”, a typing tool algorithm, and an internal toolkit and rollout plan).

Role and responsibilities

As Insight Lead, I was accountable end‑to‑end:

Shaping the brief and success metrics with the Business Leads
Selecting and onboarding the agency partner
Steering the analytics and qualitative work
Ensuring feasibility of database mapping with Data Science and our personalization teams
Designing and driving the internal embedding and launch

The project combined new primary research in core markets with behavioral and product‑usage data, and was designed explicitly to be used for both external acquisition and internal personalization use cases.

Multi-stakeholder alignment

A major early challenge was aligning a complex stakeholder set: brand, integrated marketing, product management, commercial teams, CX, data science, legal and compliance, and personalization partners.

I set this up in three layers:

Senior leadership input – I defined and socialized what “success” looked like: clear, differentiated segments; ability to map to the user base; a manageable number of segments that could be used in brand, product, sales, and lifecycle decisions.
Cross‑functional needs capture – I ran/commissioned stakeholder interviews and workshops to understand how different teams would use the segmentation (e.g. media planning, roadmap prioritization, lifecycle design, contact strategy, sales and upsell). This informed the variable set, the number and type of segments, and the priorities for later activation.
Technical feasibility checks – I organised discussions with internal data scientists and our personalization team to understand what behavioral data points could realistically be used as “hooks” to map segments onto our customer base, and to pressure‑test early ideas for golden questions and allocation models, keeping legal and compliance involved every step of the way to ensure the planned mapping adhered to relevant privacy laws and internal policies.

Selecting and shaping the agency solution

I ran the agency selection process, using the brief I authored as the basis for proposals and evaluation.

Key things I drove in the chosen solution:

Phased approach – build the quant segmentation, deepen it qualitatively, design a toolkit, then embed it via internal activation, rather than stopping at the cluster solution.
Hybrid data strategy – insistence on combining survey data (attitudes, needs, behaviors) with Avast behavioral data, and building both needs‑based and behavior‑based allocation models so the segmentation could live in both external research and internal systems.
Clear success criteria for cluster selection – we agreed up front how we would judge candidate solutions: distinctiveness, business relevance, ability to map back to our base, and usability (4-8 segments, with simple narratives and non‑PII golden questions).

I was deeply involved in reviewing the candidate segment solutions and trade‑offs, working hands‑on with the agency analytics team and our internal stakeholders to select a final structure that balanced statistical rigor with real‑world usability.

Typing tools and “golden questions”

A core requirement was that the segmentation could be applied easily:

In future research and testing
During onboarding and in‑life customer interactions
Within our databases for at‑scale personalization

I owned the requirements for, and validation of:

Golden questions – short, attitudinal/behavioral items that avoided PII so they could be safely used in customer‑facing contexts while still discriminating effectively between segments.
Typing/allocations tools – algorithms that used responses to the golden questions and, separately, behavioral data from our customer base to assign segment membership. I worked with the agency and internal data scientists to iterate these tools using boosted customer samples within the main survey and our own product‑usage data.

Early versions of the allocation logic did not perform as expected due to a simple labeling error on the agency side. I discovered the issue, and worked with the agency, despite strong pushback that the solution was correct, to uncover the underlying cause, and get to a final, correct version of the typing tool algorithm.

Design toolkit and naming / narratives

Beyond the analytics, my focus was to ensure the segmentation was memorable and “lived” in the organisation, not just in a deck.

I drove the requirements for a design toolkit that included:

Pen portraits and data sheets for each segment, showing attitudes, behaviours, needs and value, in a simple, story‑led format
Visual identities, memorable alliterative naming, and illustrations for each segment, used consistently across decks, handbooks and internal content
Short video content and “meet the segment” materials bringing segments to life in their own words

I also commissioned and approved a launch video that explained the seven consumer segments in a highly visual, accessible way. Later, when the company rebranded as Gen, I briefed a re‑build of this video with new branding and illustration styles, including segment‑specific colors aligned to the new design system. I remained the client and creative approver throughout this work.

Company-wide launch and embedding

Embedding was treated as a dedicated program rather than an afterthought. I worked with the agency and internal partners to design and run:

Launch events – high‑impact internal sessions (virtual and, where possible, in‑person) fronted by senior sponsors, introducing why we needed segmentation, what the segments were, and how they would be used. We used teaser communications, simple “active listening” exercises and live Q&A to build engagement rather than just broadcast a finished model.
Activation workshops – tailored sessions for core teams (marketing, product, sales, CX) that moved from “what are the segments?” to “what do we change?” Each group worked through implications for media planning, proposition design, journey and lifecycle design, and metrics. I co‑designed the agendas and materials and either led or co‑facilitated many of these sessions.
Ongoing enablement – integration of the segmentation into our internal “customer academy” so new and existing employees had structured ways to learn about the segments, and use of the golden questions and segment language in ongoing research and CX initiatives.

Post-merger: reconciling two segmentations

Following the merger that formed Gen Digital, we faced a new challenge: multiple legacy consumer segmentations across brands. That created the risk of competing “truths” about the customer.

I contributed to the post‑merger work to:

Compare and contrast the existing segmentations in terms of structure, underlying needs, and practical usability
Evaluate where they overlapped, where they diverged, and which elements were most valuable for a unified organisation
Plan how to relaunch a consolidated, company‑wide segmentation in the new Gen context, including updated branding and assets (for example, commissioning the re‑branded segmentation launch video mentioned above).

This involved close collaboration with insight colleagues from other legacy businesses, brand and marketing leadership, and analytics teams to ensure we moved toward a single, coherent framework that could underpin cross‑brand decision‑making.

Impact

While specific metrics are confidential, the program achieved its core aims:

Delivered a differentiated, future‑oriented consumer segmentation aligned to Avast’s strategic shift and brand relaunch
Enabled both research‑based and behavior‑based allocation of segments into the customer base, giving personalization and lifecycle teams a practical tool rather than a theoretical model
Established a shared customer language across marketing, product, commercial and CX, supported by a rich toolkit and company‑wide training and communications

My role combined strategic framing, technical oversight, and hands‑on delivery: from authoring the original brief, steering multi‑stakeholder alignment and agency work, through to fixing the practical details of typing tools and leading the internal rollout and post‑merger consolidation.