Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods, Biotechnology, and Obesity

5. Mental Maps That Lead to Consumer Insights

five Mental฀Maps฀That฀Lead฀to฀฀ Consumer฀Insights We know that people have different attitudes about food, but how are theseattitudesinfluenced?Severalfactors,suchasfoodpreferences,beliefs, values, socioeconomic status, and knowledge of nutrition, influence the formation of food attitudes. Understanding why and how people choose the foods they do will help us develop a more targeted marketing communication strategy and ultimately influence their eating behavior. One way to do this is by drawing mental maps. Mental maps represent how different characteristics of a food are associated with one another. That is, when a person thinks of blueberries, she might think of them as low in calories and healthful. In turn, she might associate low calorie and healthy with blueberry’s being nutritious, and she might then associate eating nutritiously with being a good parent and being an energetic and attractive person. In the end, the simplified mental map described here would show that eating a low-calorie, healthful food such as blueberries points to the person wanting to be a good parent and an energetic and attractive person. A number of examples of mental maps are provided throughout this chapter. Mental maps are developed based on the insights that one gets when conducting laddering interviews. A laddering interview is similar to the classic picture of a psychologist interviewing a patient on a couch, gaining insights into the patient’s life that are not easily apparent. The psychologististryingtogettotherootoftheproblemthroughquestioning .Ladder05 .61-72_Wans.indd฀฀฀61 3/30/05฀฀฀2:51:28฀PM 62 • tools for targeting ing serves the same function, with the exception that the marketer is not searching for the root of a problem. Rather, he or she is trying to find the root reasons for the customer’s purchase of a particular food. In contrast to surveys, which trace or assess general consumer sentiment, laddering assesses deeper reasons why individual consumers buy. Aggregating these deep perceptions allows more profound but still generalizable insights to be uncovered. When customers perceive personal relevance in a product’s attributes, it is because the product becomes more strongly and uniquely associated with desirable usage consequences. This chapter presents laddering as a useful method for evaluating means-end theory and generating consumer insights that help guide marketing strategy and execution. Mental฀Maps฀and฀the฀Laddering฀Technique Mental maps are the hierarchical organization of consumer perceptions and product knowledge (Gutman 1982) that range from attributes to consumption consequences to personal values (attributes → consequences → values). This basic hierarchy starts with product attributes that have consumption consequences (e.g., the “low calorie” attribute of celery having the consequence of controlling weight or the vitamin A attribute of a carrot having the consequence of improving eyesight). Each consequence , in turn, supports one or more important values in that person’s life. Means-end theory seeks to understand human actions—in this case food consumption—as a means of satisfying different levels of needs. Means-end theory suggests that concrete attributes link to self-relevance and more abstract associations. Laddering is an effective way to evaluate and draw implications about the means-end theory. Laddering uses a series of progressive questions that allow an interviewer to understand how a product’s attributes, the consequences of using it, and the personal values it satisfies are linked together. Attributes are the physical properties of the product. Consequences are outcomes, derived from attributes, that the customer associates with the use of the product. Values are derived from associations between consequences and personal value systems. Values, often attributed to deep emotional needs, often represent the real reason why people buy high-equity brands. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, values are on a higher level than product attributes and consequences. The strength of associations between at05 .61-72_Wans.indd฀฀฀62 3/30/05฀฀฀2:51:29฀PM Mental฀Maps฀That฀Lead฀to฀Consumer฀Insights • 63 tributes, consequences, and values has a strong influence on favorable intentions toward buying a product. Attributes฀Only฀Scratch฀the฀Surface When first asked why they purchase a product, consumers typically answer in simple, superficial ways. These responses sound right to the consumer , but they reveal little about the reasons for the purchase. These responses often describe attributes of the product, such as taste, price, size, brand name, quality, and price or value. Although they may describe the product accurately, they are seldom the real reasons why people buy products. Past experiences in...