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08.27.2004

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January 12, 2004 "The Death of Generational Marketing"

November 22, 2002 "A Rational Explanation for Irrational Patterns of Consumption: The Self of Many Selves"

May 10, 2002 "Will the New Wellness Consumer Please Stand Up"

Oct 30, 1999 "You Say 'd-alpha tocopherol' and I Say 'vitamin E': Researching the Natural Products Consumer"

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Occasion-based Research: what It Is And Why You Want It

It's only day two of your Appalachian Trail odyssey and you're already beginning to question the wisdom of your adventure vacation. If only you had listened to that little voice telling you real hiking boots are about function not fashion. But whether or not you listen to the voices inside your head is really none of my business. I merely wish to note that purchases can seem perfectly rational and sane at the point of sale only to dumbfound us at the point of use, because the two situations represent distinctly different occasions.

Things themselves don't change from sale to use, of course, but our perceptions of what they are or why we want them certainly do. As consumers, we even plan for this perceptual break from one occasion to the other. For instance, we are admonished never to shop for food while hungry, as if to put as much distance as possible between "sensible" shopping occasions and indulgent eating occasions. In other instances, consumers try to close the gap between shopping and using by mimicking the conditions of use while out shopping. How often have you seen consumers strutting up and down the aisle trying out a pair of shoes or throwing a shoulder bag over their arms to try out the feel.

Not surprisingly, some of the most thriving retail businesses owe a large measure of their success to an uncanny knack for creatively blurring the line between shopping occasions and use occasions. By hinting at the conditions and sense of a product's use, these retailers create a shopping experience that few customers can resist. It's no mere convention for high-end audio and video salons to offer intimate listening and viewing rooms to showcase their wares; it's a necessary part of the business. Fancy showrooms aren't just for in-home products either. Recreational outfitters, such as REI, have designed portions of their stores to help customers safely recreate the experience of different outdoor activities. The inherent differences between shopping occasions and use occasions from a consumer point of view lie at the heart of many unique and compelling retail shopping experiences.

Of course, we would argue against trying to understand consumer behavior exclusively in terms of either shopping occasions or use occasions. I mention this here because one often encounters forays into occasion-based research that only look at one or the other. For example, I recently ran across an article describing several "shopping-occasion-based need states" that advised retailers to take a "sharper focus on occasions that count." But a singular "focus on [shopping] occasions," no matter how sharp, seems arbitrarily limiting. At a minimum, it ignores the connections that consumers themselves are making between shopping and use occasions.

More generally, we have found that the best way to understand consumer behavior is to treat it much more broadly than is common in market research. The Hartman Model, which embodies our "world perspective," allows us to situate individual consumer behavior in its proper social, historical and cultural context. To put it simply, we model consumer behavior in context because we know real consumers do not live, shop or buy in a vacuum.

A key implication of modeling consumer behavior as something inextricably tied to specific contexts is that situations, occasions and acts rather than individuals become the center of attention. Imagine selling to occasions rather than individuals: the running-late morning routine, the weekend family breakfast, the gym outing, the family movie night, even the shopping trip itself. This shift in emphasis also means grouping (i.e., segmenting) consumers becomes much less relevant than grouping activities and settings. As a result, individual characteristics and attitudes generally have to take a back seat to the conditions and circumstances that shape what consumers do on any given occasion.

In contrast to our approach, most consumer research strives to identify "target" consumer segments and determine the "hot buttons" that will influence their behavior. Moms with Kids, Boomers, Gen-Xers, Metrosexuals, Cultural Creatives are all targets. And there are serious, well-meaning marketers who, with a straight face, can describe these targets and tell you what makes them tick. They can explain why Moms with Kids always shop at Wal-Mart, Boomers are loyal to Sears, Gen-Xers only e-shop, Metrosexuals wouldn't be caught dead anywhere less than Prada, and Cultural Creatives are worried about what's happening to their local co-op.

Our occasion-based approach is fundamentally different. Rather than try to figure out what consumers in different segments should be doing, we concentrate on concrete acts and ask why they occur in specific situations. It doesn't much matter to us if the most loyal Krispy Kreme patron is a White male in his late 20s who makes between $45,000 and $67,000 a year. When the sign flashes "Hot Doughnuts Now," we know the target is virtually everyone. More to the point, that particular red neon invitation identifies a distinct occasion not a consumer segment, and to understand its drawing power we need to examine its characteristics not the attributes of a particular consumer segment. Put another way, we want to know what it is about doughnuts in general and Krispy Kreme doughnuts in particular that distinguishes the behavior of hardcore doughnut fanatics from the behavior of merely interested bystanders. This approach allows us to answer the question, "Where in the wide world of doughnuts does Krispy Kreme stand and have they positioned themselves to sell as many doughnuts as possible?".

While we firmly believe occasion-based research is superior to segmentation-based research, there isn't any reason the two can't go hand-in-hand. In fact, we have worked with clients integrating the two on many occasions. After all, they address quite different issues. So, why is it that researchers don't consider occasions more often when designing market research? My guess is that not many researchers or clients fully appreciate the benefits of analyzing occasions. Stay tuned to find out just what these benefits are.

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