For consumer insights teams, shopper insights research feels foreign; it requires a different set of approaches and a totally different mindset. Shopping is about action more than preferences. It's about the shopping trip rather than a single product category. Yet, shopper insights are critical for making shopper marketing work for your brand, enhancing your relationships with retail customers, and, if you're an agency, having a complete offer.
Here are 10 reasons you should care about the shopper.
#1: Fifty percent or more of product and brand decisions are made in-store; numerous shopper insights studies agree. What in-store activation will lead you to win more than your fair share of "jump balls?"
#2: Shopper marketing offers immediacy and reach and is projected to be the fastest growing part of the media mix over the next few years. Wal-Mart and other large retailers offer a bigger audience than prime time shows.
#3: What people care about as shoppers is different. As shoppers, people are in action mode. They are making many decisions taking only seconds per decision where 99 percent of the products in the store are irrelevant to the shopper's mission on a given trip. How can you deliver a highly shoppable environment under these conditions?
#4: Shopper marketing gives you unique opportunities to be relevant. Retailers have different store formats that are geared to serve their local clientele. How will your brand presentation be customized?
#5: Product marketers are getting into retail. Apple, Coach, Estee Lauder have all been successful. Procter just bought specialty retailer chains and a number of marketers have been using pop-up stores.
#6: Shopper insights are currency for building strong customer relationships. Retailers seek manufacturer partners who translate insights about how people shop into actions that increase traffic, category and aisle sales. Manufacturers must master shopper insights or will find their competitors working directly with the merchant to determine their place on the shelf...if any.
#7: Advertising agencies must master shopper marketing to have a complete offering: those who do not offer shopper marketing services will be viewed as incomplete.
#8: Shopper insights and consumer insights are different things. Consumer insights study preferences; shopper insights study how people put preferences into action. The research tools, questionnaires, and mental models are all different.
#9: Studying the path to purchase offers a new approach to media planning. Where the purchase decision is made (before or after entering the store) varies by type of product. Knowing this for your type of product is critical to setting the right marketing mix between shopper marketing and off-premise brand-building.
#10: The recession is leading to big changes that are SHOPPER-centered. How people plan their shopping trips, their increasing purchase of store brands, retailers de-SKUing all are impacted by economic pressures.
Shopper marketing is real and the need for shopper insights is acute.
Discussion Questions: What are some obvious and less obvious reasons studying the shopper is different from studying the consumer? Why do you think shopper insights are important? Can you come up with any reasons not mentioned in the article?