Monday 27 January 2014

Mums and grocery shopping - trends from The Big Mum Opinion

Over the next few weeks we'll be sharing trends we've drawn out from our large scale consumer insight report from 3000 UK mums - The Big Mum Opinion. This week we're talking grocery shopping
  1. Mums 'multi-shop' for groceries. Over 78% of mums use more than one shop (including online) to buy their grocery shopping in a typical week. And 28% use three or more. 70% because of offers and 39% because of better quality fresh food and vegetables.
  2. Mums love loyalty schemes, but rarely pick one to be 'loyal' to. Mums told us that their loyalty to stores is now shared - they are often loyal to two or three supermarkets.
  3. It's not all about supermarkets. Although supermarkets are a staple, mums told us that they can shop in a bargain store (17%), farm shop (9%) and supermarket (80%) in the same day or week for their household groceries.
  4. Offers and the quality of a product are not mutually exclusive. Don't be fooled into thinking that because mums love offers they are necessarily willing to compromise on quality, convenience or ethics. Quality of product is still incredibly important to many mums and they won't go for a cheaper product if they perceive it to be of an inferior quality.
  5. Mums like a choice of communication channels too. In-store marketing is still very important to mums - they are in the shopping zone and think it is a good time for brands to talk to them - even the online and social media savvy mums say so. Mums multi-shop and they also use multiple communication channels to decide.


If you'd like to read the full Big Mum Opinion report you can get your hands on it here.

Thursday 16 January 2014

New report: The Big Mum Opinion

2013 was a significant year for MumPanel. We decided to undertake one of the biggest, indepth research projects into mums in the UK.

We set some tricky targets – speak to 3000 mums, gather a real understanding of where mums will be in 2014 – what they want, what they need, what brands are getting right and where companies need to work a little harder to make the right connections with families.  And finally ensure we spoke to all kinds of mums, not just online but in the community and at the school gate.

And the result of our work is The Big Mum Opinion – where you can find information on mums usage of social media, mums' trusted sources of influence, consumer engagement points, brand loyalty, and the impact of children on mums’ purchasing decisions, plus much more.



But most importantly it reveals how you can really connect with mums and capture that market. 

Here are our top five tips…

1. Give mums honesty, realness and transparency from product through to
communications. Know your values and be ready to evidence them.
        
2. Be genuine. Deliver products and services that really make a difference. That way you'll build trust and mums will genuinely recommend you through their own natural word of mouth channels.

3. Be there for mums as a trusted resource. But don't try to be a false best friend.

4. Offers. 88% of mums tell their friends and family about offers and 81% actively seek out offers. Why not get the mums to be the ones to share and hand out their offers with others.

5. Mums don't want to feel stereotyped.  33% felt labelled or patronised. Look at mums' real decision-making and purchasing journeys. Identify and map out key touchpoints, patterns and reasons for differing decisions. Focus on the mum
perspective and you will reach and connect with them better.

You can sign up for the full report (and find an info graphic) on the MumPanel website.