Image from brandweek.com
And so we’ve all heard that there was a shift in spending due a little thing called the recession. Not too long ago gas was four dollars a gallon and people still drove Humvees to actual jobs. That reality is long gone, and consumers have become considerably wiser with their discretionary income. Ultimately ‘09 marked a year of insight research to better target consumers before investments were made in-store.*1
Well, what did yesteryear’s insight research teach us?
For starters insights are as important as they are important sounding.*2 It’s brought about smarter, insight driven solutions, adding value by making shopping easier for consumers. For instance, marketers have taken to the insight that certain grocery shoppers like it when you present meal ideas in-store and have the corresponding ingredients conveniently available.*3 Say you want to make a pasta dinner. You would have to go to the sauce aisle, the pasta section, hit up the seasoning, and have you even thought about a side? Well, what if a display had sauce, pasta, seasoning, and garlic bread? You probably didn’t even know you wanted garlic bread, but the idea is there and it would be awfully convenient to add to your basket. Virtual testing and research has also shown shoppers react differently to different things. With virtual testing, you are able to manipulate a virtual shopping world, giving creative a realistic environment for testing. Researchers can physically see the variation in how certain groups react to things like shapes and colors.*4 The advantage of virtual testing is that you can put current insights to the test and extract more insights on how people actually react to things on-shelf. In summary, the most important thing the research has shown is that we need more of it.
In-Store for 2010
According to our In-Store Marketing VP and predictions extraordinaire, Heather Magnussen, insights and testing are going to be as important as the display designs themselves. While design is incredibly important, research advancements can now better predict how consumers will react to designs and products. What people say they are going to do and what they actually do is sometimes a very different thing. By tapping into both pre-design insights and post-design virtual insights before a major investment has been made, everyone wins. The rise of virtual research is giving marketers a whole new scope of how people actually react to creative. In 2010, the smart investment is seeing if an increase in insight research and virtual testing is right for your brand.
You have a point of view, share it.
1. http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/esearch/e3i9b282d63be07572a296e7cab5a8a94a52.
2. http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/esearch/e3i6c373b8b2be6b84f536cd5265cb61f5b3.
3. http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/esearch/e3i16eec4cb803d7b6fd8c14ab1b6070e954.
4. http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/esearch/e3i27945265e8c954251e65ca9f07388ca1.
Matt and Kim played while I was posting. Check them out at http://www.mattandkimmusic.com
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Trending & Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.