SPA Future Thinking examined the habits of 1,000 male and female grocery shoppers, and discovered that one group is consistently the first to try new products and recommend these products to friends and family. This group, called ‘taste setters’, acts as a catalyst to help drive awareness and new product launch success – crucial considering that around 80% of product launches fail.
Understanding taste setters– who account for a fifth of shoppers – is essential for brand owners, because of their ability to drive consumers to try new products as well as building a products profile.
This is particularly true since the rise of social media platforms and online review sites, as this group is more inclined to ‘like’ or talk about products on social media sites. They will also actively seek new things to try, and are 2.6 times more likely to buy new products than other grocery shoppers.
He, or she (there is no difference in gender or social grades), will typically be between 25-34 years old, often in full time employment and responsible for the household’s grocery shopping.
Many will describe themselves as good cooks who try to make a meal from scratch regularly, but usually resort to a couple of microwave meals throughout the week.
They are more likely than regular grocery shoppers to be health conscious and exercise regularly – and a significant proportion (42%) are often trying to lose weight – this compares to just 30% of average shoppers. For almost half (49%), holidays are taken off the beaten track, and they are also more likely to consider themselves food connoisseurs and risk takers than the average grocery shopper.
The group is keen to learn more about food and drink, regularly reviewing products online and picking up tips about food and drink through social media channels.
While taste setters are no more likely to see adverts than the average shopper, they do react to them in a more positive way. While only 31% of average shoppers use advertising to help them choose what they buy, this rises to 61% of taste setters. Advertising is more effective for this group, with more than four-fifths (86%) of taste setters noticing products they have seen advertised, compared to 62% of average grocery shoppers.
Taste setters are not just early adopters from the classic 1962 classification – in fact, only 46% of early adopters also qualify as taste setters. This is an important differentiation for companies targeting their marketing drives towards the early adopter classification, since less than half of them will share the full range of taste setter talents needed to build the profile and sales of a new product to market.
Other key findings about taste setters compared to the average UK grocery shopper are:
Jan Worsley, head of Quantum Lab, at SPA Future Thinking, said: “The social aspects of product adoption are becoming increasingly relevant, and the fact that these effects are exacerbated by a particularly engaged and networked subset of the population, is now firmly understood. Taste Setters are the people who build sales of a new launch, not just with their own purchase but by encouraging other, more reluctant, consumers to try the product and building a profile online through social media conversations and reviews. Essentially they are another, more credible, channel of communication.
“By considering this group when launching a new product, brands can be more targeted in their marketing and advertising, increasing the chance of success of adoption by consumers. There is a huge amount of competition within NPD and with even well-known brands struggling to get cut through with new offerings; taking note of the key characteristics of taste setters and targeting initial activity directly at this segment could mean the difference between success and failure.”
Source: SPA Future Thinking
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