New Consumer Behavior Insights

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Food Technology & Innovation Forum, where I gave a presentation along with Kent Spalding, the marketing director of Weetabix/Barbara’s Bakery. We talked about how consumers engage with brands online. In this case, the Puffins Cereal brand, which is a natural for social media.

As much as I enjoy learning about new products and industry trends, I truly love delving into consumer behavior. The presentations that opened and closed Day One delivered some very specific ideas relevant to mapping minds and developing products.

The Food Innovations show was kicked off by Howard Moskowitz, Ph.D., championing his “Mental Genome” theory of making all offers from retailers and manufacturers relevant to a consumer on an individual level. Citing potential ROI, particularly when applied to loyalty programs, Dr. Moskowitz believes by collecting—person by person—granular information that probes purchase behavior according to stated preference (i.e., I buy chocolate for indulgence vs. nutritional value), a retailer/manufacturer can tailor messaging to best trigger my personal motivators. This messaging can then be deployed on a mass scale to make the appeal to every person who shares that preference. The theory can apply not to big-ticket items, but to purchases of $1 to $10. It’s an intriguing idea.

As a marketer, I love nothing more than trying to predict behavior, but I tend to view consumers as a bit fickle. To make an effort like this pay out, buying patterns would need to remain constant over time and consumers would have to be totally honest about what truly prompts them to purchase. I find many people express a “should” rather than a “do.” Still, it’s an interesting idea.

Another fascinating presentation concerned hormonal influence on taste, and was delivered by Prof. Diana Derval from Derval Research in The Netherlands. She explored how estrogen and testosterone levels guide a person’s ability to perceive flavors and how “super-tasters”—those with a preponderance of taste buds—are folks you don’t necessarily want taste-testing your products. Neither are those who have “almost no taste.” Literally, those with so few taste buds (and long index fingers—I kid you not!) that they’ll eat or drink almost anything and not experience the “ick” factor. High levels of testosterone tend to correlate with ultra-aggressive and mostly male consumers. So food companies comply with super strong tasting products like Monster Energy Drink that appeal to this segment.

Both Dr. Moskowitz’s IdeaMap® and Prof. Derval’s Hormonal Fingerprinting point to opportunities to target consumers and create new products. As stated over and over again at food conferences, a product’s taste really is everything. I know my ability to enjoy food—my sense of taste—has noticeably evolved through distinct periods of hormonal changes through the years. My professed reasons to purchase are less static. I will be interested to learn more about how marketers are applying either of these theories and what successes they are having.