Kraft Foods
First to the Table
Q&A on Occasion Based Marketing
With Diane Tielbur, Senior Director, Shopper Engagement for Kraft Foods
In Search of Shopping Occasions
Americans are changing the way they shop for groceries. The challenge for the food industry is to understand these changes and learn how to harness them for growth for supermarkets and brands.
To that end, Kraft Foods, Inc. recently invested in ground-breaking research that revealed a call to action to think about shopping trips and occasions differently than ever before. Meanwhile, the consumer insights and shopper insights groups at Kraft Foods have merged to provide a more holistic view of people and their needs.
Supermarket News spoke with Diane Tielbur, Senior Director of Consumer Insights and Strategy, who provided more details.
SN: What is the Kraft Foods' vision for Shopper Insights?
Tielbur: At Kraft Foods we are continually looking to identify and leverage consumer and shopper insights. We believe that we will be more successful by partnering with key retailers to provide solutions for our shoppers' needs. The combined equity of Kraft Foods and our retailers is stronger than either one of us alone.
We are also in the process of developing a more holistic view of the consumer and her shopping behaviors. In the past, those insights were somewhat separated. We are now working on bringing them together for even greater insights in understanding the path to purchase. This will allow us to better address and anticipate future behaviors as well as what resonates best at the time of purchase.
SN: Please tell us more about this holistic view of the consumer.
Tielbur: Historically Kraft Foods had a Shopper Insights group and a Consumer Insights group. Over time we recognized that it made more sense to join forces and put them together under one Center of Excellence.
As we create the Consumer Insight and Understanding plans, we include a section on the shopper to understand the shopper on the Path to Purchase from the very beginning all the way to the end usage.
We want to understand the information the shopper knows when they walk into the store. Do they get asked to purchase products by brand name or just asked to buy the category? How often do they get asked for it? Is it a staple item or something that's always on the list? Or is it a special request item? Those are just a few of the things we seek to understand.
SN: What are the benefits of blending consumer insights and shopper insights?
Tielbur: One of the benefits of blending the consumer understanding with the shopper understanding is a deeper understanding of the shopper's environmental context, category consideration and connection with our brand to better understand drivers of the shopping trip and other things that impact that shopping trip. The shopper may be the consumer or they may be shopping for someone else. If they are shopping for another person, we want to understand how she interacts with the user, with the category and what drivers her purchase? What are the implications of that knowledge? We find it very helpful to understand both facets: consumer and shopper.
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Have a burning question related to Occasion Based Marketing? Ask Kraft Foods' expert, Diane Tielbur, Senior Director, Shopper Engagement for Kraft Foods.