On Occasion

The occasion-based shopper demands a tailored experience. By Jenn Gioffre and Beth Craig. Today’s traditional grocery shopper shops the way her supermarket tells her to shop. Week after week, she pushes her grocery cart along a familiar path: up and down the dry goods aisles, weaving in and out of appealingly stacked — but often unrelated — products on display. She even creates her shopping list based on where products are placed and how her local store is laid out.

The problem is, that’s not how she thinks about buying food. She thinks proteins and veggies for dinner, fruit snacks and juice boxes for lunch, milk for breakfast. Where manufacturers are thinking “brands” and retailers are thinking “categories,” she is thinking “dinner.” That’s a disconnect. The shopper has changed. Brands need to change how they sell. Retailers need to adapt, maybe even redesign, to meet the shopper’s needs. Better, more observational, research is required. Shopper marketing needs to play a bigger role by creating the connections, pathways and experiences that can tap into what’s on the shopper’s mind. It is the age of the occasion-based shopper. read >>