Friday, June 27, 2008
Moving Beyond the Obvious
Are you a curious person? Are you always searching for deeper meaning? Well, I am. One of the things I am on a quest to find, and admittedly do not know how to yet is deeper motivation of shopping behavior. Over the years, lots of "attitudinal" and behavioral surveys have been conducted on why people selected the store they ended up buying a particular product. I get frustrated that, almost without exception, the reasons are always "prices", good sales", "location of the store". We need to get to deeper meaning. How can we tap into true motivations? My theory is that for most routine, grocery store type products is that consumers do not know what really motivates them and "price" becomes and easy answer. Will you help me? Post comments!
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8 comments:
Price is the rationalised response that is created longer after the decision is made. The decision is made my an emotional response and a reaction in the short term memory. It is forgotten within 5 minutes of making the decision. There is no way consumers can tell you hgalf of what what motivated a purchase - even very soon after the fact.
Understanding consumer decisions takes observation and depth qualitative research.
The book The Mental World of Brands by Giep Franzen is very good on this.
Thanks for the recommendation Robin. I believe what you are saying and fear much of the research being done is survey based, which is why we are not getting really in-depth insight.
Even when superficially valid the answers like “prices” and “location of/in the store” have very limited value to the marketers, advertisers, merchandisers and retailers who are paying billions of dollars for these kinds of “research insights”.
Directionally, possible solutions to this conundrum would involve encouraging shoppers to verbalize their “intuitive” (typically not verbalized -- but relatively easy to access) thoughts and feelings just before and during the decision-making process (see Robin’s point about “5 minutes”) – while minimizing as much as possible interference of our research. This requires in-depth qualitative methodologies – as opposed to: focus groups’ sound bites (days or weeks after the purchase and heavily influenced by group situation), projective techniques (pie in the sky, free-floating pseudo-creativity – almost never related to real decision-drivers) or (camera in their face) “ethnographies”.
Qualitative shop-alongs, retracings of think-aloud recordings from the shopping process and use of realistic, detailed visual cues (digital camera photos from the specific isle where the purchase was made) as stimuli for the shoppers reconstructing their decision-process thoughts and feelings -- can help us to move in the right direction. For years now, I have been begging my clients and prospects to let me show them how it could work for them. Unfortunately, the expediencies of corporate employment and understandable preferences for familiar/safe methodologies tend to leave very little room for experimentation and discovery.
andrey@actionablecustomerinsights.com
Survey is the quickest in person but it misses what you guys are saying which is that it misses. Retail is all about flexibility and until we find a way to get almost real time shopper information that we can act upon will we be in a position to tackle it on a level we desire.
Understanding what the shopper doesn't often know which is the trigger to buy the product they have in the bag. But they do know what they needed as they arrive at the store. If we find that in a manner we can use then I can do my job.
I often find my customers incorrectly interpret how/why the shopper is purchasing versus why they like the proudct as a consumer. What we do at the store versus new product development are completely different set of variables.
Hi Jason! I recently read about Dr. Rapaille, a psychologist who works with many Fortune 500 companies and helps them understand the deeply rooted, subconscious, emotional drivers of consumer behavior and product attitudes. He employs very unorthodox methods, which I find very fascinating. Maybe, this sort of research, where shoppers are brought into a trans-like state and are not concerned with being reasonable/logical, would be able to provide more insight into why shoppers prefer to shop in certain places?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/persuaders/
interviews/rapaille.html
A friend of mine told me once his company used hypnosis in market research. They found out that the product they were selling brought death to mind. I guess sometimes you get what you don't want to hear!
I think that there are confusion regarding two sets of questions being asked to shoppers. We should differentiate between "reason for store selection" vs "reason for product selection". It is true hat in a lot of cases the reason for store selection (why shopper choose the store he/she is at to conduct purchase today) is convenience, assortment (good selection of brands products) or low price. To the contrary the reason for product selection may not be always the price at all - in many cases it appears that brand, flavor/scent or other feature come as strong reason for purchasing a product.
I think that quantitative research can be of strong value (in addition to observations) if conducted in the store just after the purchase
While our end-goal is determining what makes the person tick relative to pulling product off shelf, the game is to understand what makes person tick.
Why the need (for product / cateogry)? Might seem obvious, never is.
Why 'this product' in this category? That's where good stuff is found -- E.G. Makes me feel good, happy, smart, ... The emotional drivers that bring that hand from knee to shelf.
Or, "why this store" -- because I... It's the 'because I' that's important. I think, I need, I'm here because.. It's person oriented, not retail, or product oriented.
The focus is on person - best insights. If on store, or even insights -- will lead down usual paths.
As soon as insights person starts a job -- the focus should be on a person / group of people -- what are their specific issues driving actions (purchase/shopping).
If getting price, store location - not getting to guts - what's inside persons head and heart. Everything about that person - frustrations of day, family situation, work attitudes...what makes them tick -- key to understanding why/how making decisions.
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