Characterization of clusters of consumers A. Marchatī(1), H. Nicod (2), A. Giboreau (1)*, N. Blot (2)
(1) Adriant Paris, France
(2) Adriant Nantes, France
 h.nicod adriant.com
At the end of a large consumer study or as a step of a Preference Mapping it is usual to do a segmentation of the consumers’ hedonic assessment about target products. It is then interesting to understand who the people forming these groups are, so that one can adapt a marketing strategy. To achieve this goal, one usually consults classical criteria to categorise people (age, gender, education level, vocation) or consumption habits. However, these classical ways to characterize people usually fail to explain the identified groups of consumers.
Thus, classification methods from human sciences were explored to highlight possible alternative interpretation of consumer clusters.
Psychology, the study of mind, brings tools to measures emotions and to describe personality. Sociology, the study of society, offers tools to define social groups based on habits or conceptual values. Anthropology, the science of people and their customs, allows to characterize groups through their habits, rites, consumption. Potential meeting points between human sciences concerns and consumer studies needs are approached.
This communication describes a research conducted on the exploration of different methods to highlight new criteria to characterize consumers. Existing researches in Social Sciences were first considered and different directions were foreseen, such as lifestyles, values and traits. Tacking into account these methodological elements, questionnaires were drawn up to characterize consumers on the basis of their lifestyles, values, traits, sensory preferences and leisure activities appeal. These questionnaires were administered during several studies using large samples and about various products.
Results did not allow to establish yet a perfect operational tool to characterize consumers. However, major lines are identified to carry on this work subsequently.
Key words: Consumers characterization, consumers segmentation, lifestyles, values, traits. |
