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Mother Knows Best: Moms Stay Optimistic, Shop Smart

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

After a tumultuous 2011, consumers are starting to regain confidence in their personal finances. This week, we released the SymphonyIRI Group Q1 2012 MarketPulse™ survey and found that 19 percent of consumers feel their financial position has improved over the past year. Forty percent feel it has remained unchanged, and 41 percent feel it has deteriorated. Though, less than inspiring, this is the most optimistic outlook since Q1 2011.

Despite the overriding doom and gloom, one group has managed to remain optimistic: the nation’s 85 million moms have a brighter outlook on the future than the general population—and trillions of dollars in spending power. The MarketPulse results offer valuable insights about this smart and influential group, including:

23 percent of moms feeling their financial position today is better than a year ago
28 percent are struggling to afford needed groceries
More than half will shop multiple stores to find the lowest price, versus 43 percent of the general population

Delving more into this trend, we also released a Point of View on this very important consumer demographic, “Valuable Assets: Today’s Moms Represent Savvy, Smart Shoppers.” In this Point of View, we discuss how often the primary shoppers for their households, moms are tasked with saving money on groceries and household needs. They adopted new shopping behaviors after the downturn and will likely continue those saving strategies even as the economy improves. Among their penny-pinching measures, moms have embraced new media as they are 2.5 times more likely than the general population to take recommendations from social networking sites or blogs.

Social media is integral for CPG marketers and retailers looking to target tech-savvy moms, but traditional marketing still goes a long way. Given their hectic schedules and mile-long, to-do lists, moms are very strategic shoppers. Nearly three-quarters make shopping lists, and moms are 24 percent more likely to use coupons to help make their lists than the general population. Once at the store, moms’ brand decisions are influenced by in-store circulars, advertisements and promotions. But, bottom line, price remains the primary deciding factor: 61 percent of moms say the price of an item heavily sways their brand decisions, versus 49 percent of the total population.

Tags: coupons, cpg, economy, grocery, manufacturers, Marketing, MarketPulse, moms, new media, Retailers, shopper attitudes, shopper behavior, Social Media, SymphonyIRI, Women Shoppers
Posted in Moms | No Comments »

2011 New Product Pacesetters: Learning from the Top CPG Launches

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

More than 1,500 new CPG products entered the market in 2011, but only 291 achieved SymphonyIRI New Product Pacesetter (NPP) status. We’re celebrating these successful product launches in SymphonyIRI’s 2011 New Product Pacesetters report, a benchmark analysis of the best-performing new CPG brands in the food and beverage and non-food categories.

Launching new products is extremely difficult, particularly in this unstable economy. Of the 15,000 CPG products introduced from 2002-2011, less than 2 percent made more than $50 million in their first year. In 2011, 81 percent of new CPG launches failed to earn $7.5 million in first-year sales. Yet, 2011 also welcomed some GREAT newcomers; an impressive 21 percent of Pacesetter products passed $50 million in their first year.

Despite ongoing economic challenges and a complex retail environment, 2011’s Pacesetters beat the new product odds, and they did so by delivering what consumers wanted: luxury and indulgence that didn’t break the bank. Some trends and success secrets from our report:

Twelve percent of 2011’s successful food and beverage launches were restaurant inspired— double that of 10 years ago.
Consumers sought unexpected textures and flavor combinations, and smart manufacturers met these demands with new technologies and bold ingredients. More than half of 2011’s successful food and beverage launches touted a new or unique recipe.
Coffee and candy were big sellers. Candy and gum launches made up 19 percent of 2011 food Pacesetter dollars, nearly triple the average for the past decade, while nine coffee and tea innovations achieved New Product Pacesetter status, accounting for about half of all 2011 beverage Pacesetter dollars.
In non-foods, consumers are skipping the salon and handling more of their beauty and personal care needs at home. Professional-quality beauty and personal care products that offer affordable, at-home luxury and indulgence really resonated with consumers.
The most successful new household products made housekeeping easier, but also provided extras like fresh fragrances, sustainability reassurances and extended product life.

For more analysis of 2011’s New Product Pacesetters and to find 2011’s most successful brand launches, please visit our New Product Pacesetters page, where you can watch the NPP video, read the press release, replay the webinar and podcast, and download a detailed Times & Trends Report on New Product Pacesetters.

Tags: consumer rituals, Consumers, cpg, CPG trends, Eating Habits, economy, health options, manufacturers, niche, retail innovation, sales, shopper behavior, shopping trends, SymphonyIRI, year-one
Posted in New Products | No Comments »

Frugality, List Making and a Taste for Gourmet: 2011 in Review

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

With minimal economic improvement, rising commodity prices and continued consumer frugality, 2011 was another challenging year for the CPG industry. During our recent webinar, “Times & Trends: CPG 2011 Year in Review,” I discussed the key economic and consumer trends that impacted CPG performance across various channels, departments and categories in 2011. These include:

Ongoing conservatism shifted shopper behavior: As illustrated in our December report, “The CPG Basket: Fostering Growth in a Time of Conservation,” pantry stocking missions are a way of the past. Consumers are now making smaller, more strategic shopping trips. Rather than blindly stocking up on anything and everything, consumers are carefully researching where and when they can obtain items at the best possible price.

Shopping locally: As gas prices continue to climb, many consumers are looking to shop closer to home, contributing to a decline in supercenter traffic. In 2011, consumers made an average of only two supercenter trips each month, compared with an average 4.7 grocery store trips.

In-home indulgences: Now that consumers across income levels are saving money by enjoying more meals at home, sales of various food and beverage categories have increased, including wine, chocolate, natural cheese and salty snacks.

Some consumers are starting to open their wallets—cautiously: Wealthier consumers are buying higher-end CPG products, such as gourmet foods and salon-quality hair products, but they’re doing so with an eye towards value. High-end CPG products allow consumers to reintroduce some of the luxuries they previously enjoyed, while still spending less than they would at restaurants, bars or salons.

Strong drug channel and private label performance: The drug channel remains strong, with dollar sales climbing more than 4 percent in 2011. Private label performance also remained positive, accounting for 22.9 percent of unit sales and 18.7 percent of dollar sales.

So what can CPG manufacturers and retailers learn from these findings?

Price remains the primary consideration for consumers, so CPG manufacturers should look for opportunities to lower costs through innovative sourcing, packaging, and product sizing strategies. This is also an ideal time to explore product development based upon existing and emerging consumer trends. Gourmet and other high-end products, in particular, present a strong growth opportunity.

Retailers should be cognizant of the growing private label popularity, and look to extend private label share, particularly across low-differentiation categories and those with significant price increases. It’s also important to constantly re-assess and adjust pricing to maintain an optimal price gap between private label and name brand offerings.

CPG retailers should also seek to enhance product assortment, especially in high-growth categories, and look for cross-promotional opportunities with high-growth categories and brands, as well as staple products. Both manufacturers and retailers should keep an eye out for technological advances and should seek out new and innovative means of informing and engaging consumers.

If you missed the webinar, you can view it here, or download the full “CPG 2011 Year in Review” report.

Tags: Consumers, cpg, economy, Frugal, grocery, pricing, Retail Solutions, Retailers, shopper attitudes, shopper behavior, Shoppers, shopping, SymphonyIRI, Times & Trends
Posted in CPG | No Comments »

Shoppers Gain Confidence in Economy, but still Shop Conservatively

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

After two gloomy quarters, shopper outlook finally looks a little brighter. According to our MarketPulseTM survey results from Q4 2011, consumers have higher confidence in the economy’s upturn in the next six months. However, the conservative shopping strategies adopted to weather an economic downturn may have become habit.

After analyzing a full year of MarketPulse data, we found consumers were more optimistic in Q4 over Q3, but in many ways were less optimistic than they were in Q1. We also found that financial optimism was rebounding in Q4, with 27 percent of consumers believing their personal financial conditions will be “a lot better” or “a little better” in the new year. The MarketPulse survey also found the following positive Q4 swings in consumer attitudes regarding the economy:

Ability to increase amount of personal savings (21%), versus Q3 (18%)
Rise in investment value (21%), versus Q3 (18%)
Earning credit to become easier (16%), versus Q3 (13%)

SymphonyIRI 2011 Q4 MarketPulse

Shoppers still love buying on deal, and this trend is expected to continue in 2012 even though 20 percent of surveyed shoppers expect improvements in the economy within the next six months. Compared to the beginning of 2011, shoppers of all income levels are relying more heavily on in-store circulars, coupons, newspaper circulars, and online ads to make deal-based purchase decisions.

In addition to a press release that highlights MarketPulse survey results for Q4 2011, SymphonyIRI also just released a new Point of View, entitled “Rich with Opportunity,” which examines trends of wealthy consumers. Also available are a series of charts that highlight the top five consumer trends for 2011. All of the latest MarketPulse coverage can be found at:

http://www.symphonyiri.com/Insights/Publications/SymphonyIRIsMarketPulseSurvey/tabid/354/Default.aspx

Tags: cpg, economy, expectations, financial situation, frugal shoppers, MarketPulse, MarketPulseTM, outlook, POV, shopping strategies
Posted in MarketPulse | 1 Comment »

Survey Says: Frugality is Here for the Long Haul

Friday, November 18th, 2011

With the country still feeling the aftershocks of the recession, many consumers today have held on to their frugal practices. In fact, in our newly released Times & Trends Special Report: “The Downturn Shopper: Buckled in for a Wild and Crazy Ride,” we detail how many of these shoppers have embraced money-saving strategies with new fervor. Additionally, they continue to hone household and grocery rituals in ways that help them manage expenses.

This Times & Trends Special Report, based on results from our third quarter MarketPulse survey, finds that consumers continue to trim back eating out behaviors and instead are cooking simple meals at home. The survey also reaffirms that the Internet is a popular resource for consumers seeking the best deals. With nearly one in four consumers finding it difficult to afford weekly groceries, clicking for savings is just one of the tools consumers are using to carefully plan their CPG excursions before entering the retail marketplace.

A summary of additional insights and retailer/manufacturer recommendations to address today’s conservative shopping mindset can be found in the press release on this report.

More details regarding this report are included in a recording of our Times & Trends Webinar. Topics discussed include, “How can CPG and retail marketers adjust their strategies to appeal to today’s very conservative and risk-averse ‘Downturn Shoppers’ in order to improve sales, share and loyalty?”

Please click here to watch the recording and download a PDF of the presentation.

Tags: cpg, downturn shopper, frugal shoppers, grocery rituals, household rituals, manufacturer, MarketPulse, Retail Solutions, Times & Trends
Posted in Frugality | 3 Comments »

The Quest for Affordability

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

The quest for affordability is driving consumers to seek out better deals no matter the cost. However, counterintuitive that statement may seem, it’s spot on. Even as the price of gas continues to soar ever higher, 75 percent of shoppers still visit five or more stores to meet their CPG needs.

Consumers’ cross channel search for the best deals clearly underscores the mindset of today’s CPG shopper—a mindset in which consumers are living with less and making purchases deliberately and cautiously.

Consumers’ attitudes and behaviors today differ rather significantly from days gone by, when many Americans lived “outside their means,” drawing upon credit to keep up with the Joneses. Today’s attitudes and behaviors were shaped by prolonged economic downturn, and by the longest and deepest recession to hit this country since the Great Depression. Today, a full year after the recession has passed, aftershocks are still shaking the nation. Key economic indicators, including unemployment and inflation, remain less than favorable, and, consequently, consumers are firmly entrenched in savings mode.

Today, one in five shoppers is finding it difficult to afford necessary groceries. Consumers need to find an affordable solution to this problem, and that will affect the CPG industry.

During our recent webinar, entitled “Times & Trends: Channel Migration Webinar,” I revealed my thoughts about the ways CPG companies will see this challenge manifest itself, including the following:

Channel lines are blurring at the department level as competition for share of food and beverage spending intensifies, and as retailers across channels work to protect and grow share of health and beauty spending
Supercenters have lost share across a number of key departments and consumer segments, but supercenter marketers are shifting gears in an effort to turn the tides while simultaneously entering new formats and markets
Retailers across a majority of channels are growing share across their heaviest shoppers; drug channel performance is particularly strong—this channel is capturing share of spending from the heaviest shoppers across all competing channels

If you missed yesterday’s webinar, you can download the full “Channel Migration: A Quest for Affordability” report. And, make sure to follow @SymphIRI on twitter for updated webinar schedules and even more insights.

Tags: Affordability
Posted in Affordability | 3 Comments »

Guzzling Gas and Groceries

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

We’re all grimacing visibly every time we have to fuel up at the pump. As the gauge whirs steadily past $30, $40, and $50, the depleting affect that gas prices are having on bank accounts is shockingly clear.

Many articles about rising gas prices point to a correlating rise in food prices, due to production costs and transportation costs – both tractors and tractor trailers both guzzle gas. With average gas prices a whopping 40 percent higher than they were last year, many shoppers are having trouble affording their weekly groceries. To alleviate budgetary strain, they are making many changes to how, when and where they make their grocery purchases.

This morning, SymphonyIRI hosted a webinar, entitled “The Ripple Effect: High Gas Prices Bring Pain Beyond the Pump,” that provides a detailed look at how rising gas prices are putting the crunch on shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike.

In fact, nearly half of consumers feel their grocery budgets are being squeezed by higher prices at the pump. Here are some of the ways that grocery shopping patterns are changing:

Shopping trips are being consolidated, allowing for a reduction in overall trips.
Consumers are showing a growing affinity for closer-to-home retail options, with four out of 10 shoppers being reducing or completely eliminate trips to their preferred retailers due to high gas prices.
Shoppers are making their pantry stocking trips at supercenters and club stores instead of at their local grocers. choosing to drive “the extra mile” in search of the lowest everyday prices on key items

So, what are CPG manufacturers and retailers to do in the face of even smaller margins at the hands of rising oil prices?

In today’s webinar, we proposed three action items:

Market Assessment: Manufacturers and retailers should conduct frequent assessments of key and target consumer groups to improve responsiveness and speed-to-market.
Strategy Development and Execution: Manufacturers should develop a strategy within their category, and ensure distribution, assortment and merchandising support efforts are closely aligned with shifting trip mission trends. Retailers should drive private label growth through further development of multi-tiered private label lines, with focus on departments/categories that fit shifting trip mission dynamics.
Measurement: Manufacturers and retailers should leverage modeling/simulation to gain perspective on cause and effect before making strategy adjustments, then monitor actual impact after rollout.

Want more insights from SymphonyIRI? Don’t miss SymphonyIRI’s next webinar on July 12!

Tags: Gas
Posted in Gas | 7 Comments »

Digital Media: Influencing the Way Consumers Shop

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Today, we released findings from our Q2 MarketPulse™ survey that suggests consumers are still wary of the economic situation and, therefore, are seeking ways to save even more money than before. This cautious outlook toward the economy finds consumers utilizing the Internet by way of social media tools, including Facebook and Twitter, or by visiting manufacturer/retailer Web sites as alternative ways to steal the best deal.

In a time where there is literally an app for everything, CPG retailers are forced to adopt new practices that keep them ahead of the ever-changing digital media front. The way we interact with technology has become so prevalent in our lives it only makes sense that consumers would also use digital media within their shopping routines.

While we are seeing a significant shift towards the use of digital media as an outlet for CPG companies to participate in, not all ages are jumping on this trend. Our survey found that the largest group to use digital media as part of their shopping routine was the 55 and under population. Additionally, or survey also suggested that women are more likely than men to use the Internet as a resource for finding the best deals.

So, what does this all mean? SymphonyIRI’s Q2 MarketPulse suggests that the useof new, digital technologies are extending to the CPG industry as well. We expect this trend within the CPG industry will continue to rise in popularity as more consumers get on board with digital media. CPG marketers should keep this in mind as they dive deep into holiday planning this summer.

For more information about the Q2 MarketPulse Survey, check out our free Point of View: “Digital Dimension: Consumers Embrace Digital Media with Diverse Approaches,” that can be downloaded here.

Tags: cpg, Digital Media, MarketPulse, SymphonyIRI
Posted in Digital Media, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Men don’t ask for directions, but do make lists

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

We’ve all heard about the stereotype, “You send a man to the grocery store for diapers and he comes back with a six pack.” However, after looking into the behavior of male shoppers in our study, “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus…Or Maybe Not?” SymphonyIRI concluded that the way men shop is really not all that different from the way women do.

Most studies into shopper behavior dissect shoppers by income, race and/or geographic location, but there was still little data about how men stacked up against women in the supermarket aisles.

Families used to depend on men to go hunting and bring back enough meat to sustain everyone, but sometime between then and now, a paradigm shift has occurred, and women were expected to manage all aspects of the household, including food shopping and preparation. Now, it appears that the paradigm is shifting again. Today, an increasing number of men are at least partly responsible for shopping, either because they work or stay at home, or are half of a two-income household where shopping responsibilities are split.

Of course, every person, man or woman, shops differently. Some make lists, some clip coupons, and others wait until they get to the store to decide what they’re having for dinner tonight. But based on this study, we can conclude that men aren’t always in the last category and women aren’t always in the first.

Consumers are telling us that, when it comes to grocery shopping, men and women are not as different as we may think. Like women, men are making lists before heading out to shop, are sensitive to price, look at store circulars, stock up when they see sales, and shop at stores that offer better deals for the items on their lists.

In other words, men might be from Mars and women from Venus, but Martians and Venusians are both approaching the grocery aisles with an eye to saving money. And, their approach to saving is similar in many ways.

Tags: cpg, grocery, Male Shoppers, men, shopping, SymphonyIRI
Posted in Male Shoppers | 3 Comments »

Consumers Take Baby Steps in the Aisles

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Whether you’re a retailer, a CPG manufacturer or a healthcare leader, maneuvering your business in a recovering economy can be just as difficult as doing so in a suffering economy. We all know how everyone buckled down over the past few years, but thanks to our new Quarterly MarketPulse survey, we’re able to witness consumers grow and change.

Today at Summit 2011, marked the first day that we launched the latest statistics from our first MarketPulse survey and the results show a mixed-bag of consumers regarding their spending habits; some are spending more freely, others are indulging with caution and some are still frugal like it’s 2008. Our MarketPulse survey found that 60 percent of shoppers are eating out less often, as compared to 65 percent at this time last year.

One habit that certainly hasn’t changed is what people do before they enter the store: two out of three shoppers today are making shopping lists prior to visiting the store, which is consistent with trends in 2010! Regardless of their outlook, consumers are still clipping coupons, making lists, and pre-planning activities – are you sure you’ve marketed to your customers before they entered your store?

The MarketPulse survey was created to accurately gauge shoppers in a quarterly fashion and provide valuable insight to our customers, so keep up with our results and you won’t fall behind.

Be sure to read our press release for additional findings from the MarketPulse survey results.

Tags: cpg, MarketPulse, Summit, SymphonyIRI
Posted in Summit | No Comments »

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