Traditional market research often begins with organizing people into groups based on demographics (like age, income, gender) or psychographics (like attitudes or behaviors). These frameworks – such as segmentation research – are useful for creating a profile of who the customer is. But they don’t always explain why a customer chooses one solution over another, or what truly drives their decision-making.

The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework shifts the focus away from describing the customer and places it on understanding the progress the customer is trying to make in a specific situation. It asks: What job is the customer “hiring” a product or service to do? That “job” is not a task, but a desired outcome – often functional, emotional, or social in nature.

Why this matters for understanding customer behavior

Consider this basic example: Two people buying the same sports drink. One might be an athlete needing hydration during intense training, while the other might be a busy parent looking for a quick energy boost on the go. Demographically, these two might fall into different segments – and a focus group might surface different preferences. But when examined through a JTBD lens, what matters most is the context and motivation driving purchase – the specific “job” each customer needs the product to do.

This insight enables brands to:

• Design solutions that align with actual customer needs – not just generalized wants
• Uncover unmet needs or pain points that existing offerings don’t address
• Segment markets based on motivations and desired outcomes, not just static data points

By zeroing in on the purpose behind a purchase, JTBD offers a richer understanding of consumer insights. It reveals why people switch to (or from) your product, what alternatives they consider, and what triggers their decision-making moments. These are the kinds of insights that drive innovation and improved customer experiences.

A complement to – not a replacement for – traditional research

At SIVO, we see JTBD as a powerful addition to the market research toolkit. It doesn’t replace demographic analysis or qualitative research entirely – instead, it deepens it. By pairing Jobs To Be Done with other methods, teams can uncover both the who and the why behind purchasing behavior, leading to more targeted strategies and meaningful innovations.

Personas have long been a staple of marketing and product development. They help teams visualize common customer types, including names, photos, job titles, pain points, and even hypothetical backstories. While helpful for building empathy within organizations, personas often focus on static attributes about a “typical” customer – making assumptions about who they are and what they’ll do based on demographics or descriptive data.

The Jobs To Be Done approach takes a different route. It doesn’t begin with ‘who’ the customer is, but ‘why’ they make the choices they do. Rather than targeting a persona like “Busy Brenda,” JTBD investigates the underlying motivations and triggers behind decisions, such as “I need a lunch option that helps me stay full through back-to-back meetings.”

How JTBD reframes the research focus

• Personas: Emphasize what type of person is buying
• JTBD: Emphasizes why someone is making a specific decision

For example, multiple personas – across age groups or professions – may share the same job to be done. Whether an urban millennial or a retiree, they might both want a solution that “helps me feel safer walking alone at night.” JTBD unites them by motivation, not just profile.

This approach also addresses a common challenge with personas: they can feel too general when used to guide product or strategy decisions. Because JTBD is rooted in real use cases and decision contexts, it tends to yield more direct, actionable insights.

When to use JTBD vs personas in marketing research

Both tools have value. Personas are often helpful in designing communications or brand tone once the audience segments are known. JTBD, on the other hand, is extremely valuable at the strategic level – when you’re creating a new offering, evaluating product-market fit, or looking to differentiate in a crowded category. It helps answer questions such as:

• What unmet needs could we solve for?
• Why are people switching to competitors?
• What makes someone pick this solution over another?

At SIVO, we help teams combine the value of both approaches. While personas paint a rich emotional snapshot of customer types, JTBD reveals the dynamic, situational drivers behind buying behavior. Together, they support every stage of innovation – from ideation and strategy through execution and messaging.

A Deeper Lens on Customer Behavior

Traditional segmentation research often divides customers into groups based on demographics, purchase behavior, or income levels – for instance, “urban millennial women” or “tech-savvy baby boomers.” While this provides a snapshot of who your customer is, it doesn’t tell you what drives their decisions. The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework focuses instead on the underlying motivations – identifying what customers are trying to accomplish in their lives when they 'hire' a product or service.

Unlike segmentation, which may lead to generalized messaging, JTBD insights are built around purpose. They uncover the specific problem customers are solving, making them far more actionable when planning product development, marketing, and innovation strategies. In short, JTBD doesn't just describe customers. It explains their behavior.

Why JTBD Generates More Strategic Impact

Segmentation is ideal for refining audience targeting, but it can fall short when guiding innovation. JTBD insight feeds directly into product and business strategy by clarifying:

• What job the customer truly needs to get done
• Why current solutions aren’t working
• What success looks like through the customer’s eyes

This kind of information leads to clear product opportunities – whether that’s developing a new offering, improving an existing one, or repositioning a service to better match consumer intent.

Example: Comparing Use in Practice

Imagine a company that segments its audience by age and income and learns that high-income Gen Xers are buying home treadmills. Useful? Somewhat. But apply JTBD and you might find that consumers are actually “hiring” a treadmill because they want to stay fit in a time-saving, private environment – not because of age or wealth. That knowledge opens the door for entirely new positioning, design features, or partnerships that specifically solve for that time-efficiency goal.

In that way, JTBD connects product decisions directly to customer motivations, making outcomes more customer-centric and growth-focused. That’s the power of moving from category-based segmentation to goal-based insight.

Going Beyond Opinions to Understand Context

Traditional focus groups can be valuable in testing ideas, gathering opinions, or understanding reactions to existing products. But their limitations are well documented: small sample sizes, groupthink, and surface-level commentary. Most importantly, focus groups tend to focus on 'what people say' – whereas the JTBD framework focuses on uncovering 'why they act.'

The JTBD approach relies on in-depth, one-on-one qualitative research, often using interviewing techniques that unpack the full journey of a customer’s experience. This enables teams to discover hidden needs and emotional motivations that focus groups typically miss.

What Makes JTBD More Insightful Than Focus Groups?

• Context over consensus: JTBD interviews explore specific moments in a customer’s journey – what led them to recognize a need, explore options, and ultimately make a choice. This context provides depth far beyond a group discussion.
• Motivations over opinions: While focus groups might surface preferences (“I like the red packaging”), JTBD reveals the core motivation (“I need to quickly find energy during my long workdays – this product signals that”).
• Actionable outcomes: Because insights are tied to specific customer goals and hiring criteria, JTBD findings are directly actionable for product teams, marketers, and innovation leads.

With JTBD, the customer isn’t just another participant – they’re a source of rich, unfolding stories anchored in real-life decision-making moments. That leads to greater empathy, clarity, and confidence when making strategic business decisions.

Example: The Refrigerator Hire

In a focus group, a participant might say, “I chose this fridge because it looks modern.” But in a JTBD interview, that same person might share that they were hosting family more often, and needed something that could organize meals better and alleviate stress during gatherings. The data goes beyond aesthetics – it leads to product features like segmented shelving or quick-access drawers. JTBD delivers consumer insights grounded in lived experience, not just surface preferences.

Situations Where JTBD Delivers the Most Value

The Jobs To Be Done framework shines brightest in moments of uncertainty – when you’re looking to innovate, launch something new, or uncover unmet customer needs. While all research methods have their place, JTBD fills a specific gap in your market research toolkit by helping you understand true customer motivations and decision-making context.

JTBD Is Ideal When You Are:

• Entering a new market and want to understand how customers define success
• Creating or repositioning a product or service
• Stagnant in growth and seeking fresh customer-driven innovation opportunities
• Struggling to differentiate in a crowded category
• Looking to align product, marketing, and strategy teams around real-world customer needs

These are all situations where quantitative metrics or persona profiles might leave you with more questions than answers. JTBD brings insulation against guesswork by anchoring your strategy in clearer, more human-centered insights.

Complementing, Not Replacing, Other Methods

It’s important to note that JTBD isn’t a one-size-fits-all substitute for traditional research. Instead, it works best when integrated thoughtfully into your broader market research strategy. For example, JTBD can help shape the hypotheses and questions for future segmentation studies or add rich context that complements quantitative trends.

By pairing JTBD with other consumer insights methods – such as focus group testing or customer journey mapping – you can create a complete view of your audience that bridges data with empathy.

Making the Complex Simple

At SIVO, we often guide clients through this blending process, making sure research methods serve the right purpose at the right time. JTBD provides the “why” behind the numbers, helping businesses make smarter decisions by deeply understanding how customers define value in their own words.

Whether you’re exploring new markets or rethinking your approach to innovation, JTBD is a powerful lens that brings clarity without complexity – and that’s why it has become a go-to method for forward-thinking brands.