Consumer-centric marketing framework, explained in real-world work terms – Part 9: Understanding businesses from the scenes in which consumers use their products

This series is an attempt at reframing general marketing frameworks by linking them with consumer consciousness and behavior. Marketing frameworks like STP and 4P are relatively simple and little about them is hard to understand, but quite a few people involved in research may find utilizing them in real-world work difficult. Understanding consumer consciousness and behavior is the role of marketing research. We hope that connecting marketing frameworks and marketing research with a focus on consumers will make the marketing activities readers engage in more effective, and enable you all to deliver greater value to consumers.

In Part 8, we examined the second “moment of truth”, SMOT, from a qualitative consumer understanding perspective. In Part 9, we will consider SMOT once again, from a quantitative consumer understanding perspective.

1. No one lives their lives using product categories as a standard

Fig.1 is a schematic representation of consumers meal opportunities. It shows that consumers eat three meals a day per week from Sunday to Saturday. Consumers don’t eat meals every day in order to enable them to use a certain product, so products can instead be considered to be chosen in line with the consumer’s objective of eating a meal.

Fig.1

While the categories given here are merely illustrative examples, we sometimes receive requests along the lines of “I want to know why people aren’t eating out firm’s yogurt every morning”. These requests appear to be based on the implicit premise “people should eat yoghurt every morning”. However, consumers don’t eat breakfast to enable them to have yoghurt, so it’s natural this premise does not hold. If we think about this from a consumer-centric perspective, the request should be “I want to know why our firm’s yogurt is not being chosen for breakfast”. Looked at in another way, if we understand the insights behind when consumers choose products for breakfast, this should enable us to increase the changes of our offers being chosen, and our business growing.

If you take a standpoint of “products being selected by consumers”, it is probably natural to want to know about other product clusters included in their consideration sets. Other product clusters here refer to not just other brands in the same category, but other product categories as well. By adopting a consumer-centric outlook to business, simply thinking within the product category box is not enough, and it may make things easier to understand that inflow from other product categories etc. can be one way to grow one’s business.

2. Thinking about why items are chosen can also expand your potential product ideas

Next, I’d like you the reader to think about this in terms of yoghurt. Fig.2 depicts yogurt’s consumption scenes and what consumers seek in those scenes, as obtained from INTAGE’s dining diary survey. Breakfast makes up around 70% of the scenes in which yogurt is eaten, and it is clear consumers seek “being simple to prepare and not taking time” and “can be eaten in a short time” from scenes where they eat yogurt. Yogurt has an image of being eaten for health purposes, but it is also possible that factors like time-saving and simplicity are also reasons why it is chosen.

Fig.2

Fig.3 is a list of menu items eaten in breakfast scenes where consumers seek simplicity and to save time. Yogurt is envisaged to be eaten together with western menu items like bread and coffee more so than Japanese menu items like rice or miso soup. In addition, it appears that fruit is also eaten similarly to yogurt in these scenes, although this data does not enable us to determine whether yogurt and fruit are eaten in the same scenes, or if fruit is eaten in different breakfast scenes to yogurt.

Fig.3

The following sorts of items are conceivable as new yogurt idea directions from this data:

• Yogurt that goes well with bread and coffee
• Yogurt that can serve as a substitute to fruit
• Yogurt that goes well with fruit
• Yogurt that goes well with rice and miso soup

To further expand on these ideas, we could also hypothesize that if breakfasts with bread and coffee increased, opportunities to eat yogurt may also increase in line with this. In order to better respond to the need for simplicity and to save time, it might also be worth exploring new package formats. Fig.4 is a summary of the elements sought in each of the scenes, regardless of whether or not yogurt is present.

Fig.4

At lunch and dinner, the most common scene is “I want to eat items I like”, while the most common scene when eating something after dinner is “I want to eat something gentle on my body”. If we apply this to yogurt, if you are thinking of having people eat yogurt for lunch or dinner, proposing more palatable yogurt may be worthwhile, or if you are thinking of having people eat it after dinner, laying claim to the inherently gentle image yogurt possesses may also be worthwhile.

In this way quantitively identifying the second “moment of truth”, SMOT, can enable you to generate new product ideas.

3. Ways to ascertain SMOT quantitatively

In order to quantitatively ascertain SMOT, it is crucial the occasion is capturing the occasion without omissions or overlaps (=MECE). A relatively simple way to achieve this is to use axes that never overlap, such as time and place. The dining diary mentioned previously is an example of capturing scenes using time as an axis.

Another key point in to quantitatively ascertain SMOT is asking about usage scenes with a focus on the consumer’s behavior. Taking yogurt as an example, the following sorts of questions may be set when asking about consumption scenes in a questionnaire, but this probing method does not enable us to understand what categories compete with yogurt.

Question: Please tell us about the scenes in which you eat yogurt 　　　　　　Options: 1 At breakfast 　　　　　　　　　 　2 At lunch 　　　　　　　　　 　3 At dinner 　　　　　　　　　 　4 Other

As I noted at the beginning of this article, no one lives their life using product categories as a standard, with consumers choosing products in line with their scenes, so competing categories can be identified by asking about this as follows in line with this behavior.

Question: Please tell us about the products/menu items you eat for breakfast. 　　　　　　Options: 1 Yogurt 　　　　　　　　　　 2 Jelly 　　　　　　　　　　 3 Fruit 　　　　　　　　　　 4 …

It is not necessary to give an exhaustive list of products that could be eaten in the scenes being analyzed, but asking in this way we can obtain information on competing categories other than yogurt.

4.Summary

We have considered second “moment of truth” SMOT through a quantitative consumer understanding perspective. To repeat, consumers do not “act using the product categories business have in mind as a standard”, making ascertaining the “moment of truth” difficult from a product perspective. Consumers are not “not buying a client’s firm’s products, but rather choosing products from firms other than the client’s to suit the scenes they are in. Following this line of thought enables you to understand that not only competing brands in the same category, but products from other categories are also included in consumers’ consideration sets, and by broadening your perspective, will enable you to get closer with the creation of new product ideas.

*Survey results are sizably influenced by research design and analysis methods. If you are interested in the SMOT outlook introduced in this article or about quantitatively ascertaining this, please contact us through our website or via an INTAGE sales representative.

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Related services
Dining Diary
A two-week long diary survey that identifies the actual state of all consumption scenes including snacking, eating out, and male and single-person households, what was eaten/drunk, and feelings.

Research outline
Research methodology: Online questionnaire (diary-style survey)
Research area: Nationwide, Japan
Respondent criteria: Males/females aged 15-79
Final sample size      1,409 individuals
Number of meals asked about: Maximum of 9 meals per day
Fieldwork period: Feb. 13 ~ 26, 2023 (14 days)
*2024 survey was conducted with an expanded scale of 3,412 people.

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