MRI Adds to Segmentation Options

US provider Mediamark Research (MRI) has announced six new segmentation analyses based on consumer attitudes. The six use buying styles, investing, banking, cooking, eating and technology to divide the public into groups such as 'Swayable Shopaholics', 'Conscientious Consumers', 'Tech-Splorers' and 'Tech-Sploiters'.

The Buying Styles segmentation tool arrays consumers according to their preferred methods and styles of shopping, with five categories from Buyers of the Best to Penny-Pinchers . For the former, 56% of whom are men, quality matters most and low price is not an overriding motivation, while the latter are 63% female and are attracted more to a cents-off coupon than to brand loyalty.

There are two financially oriented systems, Market Involvement and Savings and Banking Methods, which array consumers according to their attitudes towards investing and how they prefer to conduct banking transactions. The latter identifies three distinct segments of 'consumers as bankers': Log-in Bankers, Drop-in Bankers and Phone-in Bankers.

There are also two food-related segmentations: Cooking & Food Shopping, and Eating & Nutrition. Cooking & Food Shopping explores attitudes relating to the cooking of food and the shopping that goes with it, while Eating & Nutrition divides consumers based on their relationship with food, into Convenience Over Health, Heedful of Wellness and Blasé 'bout Edibles. The Technology segmentation creates four groups, the others being Tech-Thusiasts and Techno-Phobes.

VP of Research Michal Galin comments: 'Consumers with similar demographics often have quite dissimilar approaches to consumer products and product categories... Adults in the same age group and with similar incomes, for instance, often have very different risk tolerance when it come to investing... seek different levels of emotional payback from shopping... and have different filters on the kinds of foods they buy and prepare. These segmentation analyses are designed to help marketers go beyond demographics to understand the 'why' that underlies consumer behavior.' Additional segmentations are expected in the coming months.

MRI, which is part of GfK Group AG, interviews 26,000 U.S. adults in their homes each year, asking about their use of media, their consumption of products and their lifestyles and attitudes. The firm releases data from its flagship Survey of the American Consumer twice yearly. It is online at www.mediamark.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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