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KNOWLEDGE BITES - BROUGHT TO YOU BY D&M RESEARCH
Welcome to Knowledge Bites, periodic bite sized pieces of knowledge exchange, designed to be consumed immediately without ruining your appetite for the rest of the day.
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Knowledge Nibble
“You teach and lead by who you are, sometimes by what you do,
and seldom by what you say.” - Russ Walden |
ENTRÉE
More men down the aisles!
D&M research have noticed over the past decade or so a steady rise in the number of people identifying themselves as the grocery buyer for the household, and wanted to find out more. . .
| So in a recent survey^ D&M confirmed that around 7 in 10 (67%) people aged 16 years or over now claim to be involved in grocery buying for their household – 15 years ago this level was closer to 6 in 10*. We then speculated that the rise is due to more males now identifying themselves as grocery buyers, or at least to be sharing the role. Either way it had piqued our curiosity . . . |
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First point of call was to ask our friends at Newspoll to provide some historical data – as the table below shows, the trend confirmed our hypothesis. Overall growth in Grocery Buyers (GB's) has risen from 59% in 1990 to 70% in 2005. While the incidence of female GB's has remained relatively stable (87% to 90%) over this period, the male incidence has grown significantly from 31% in 1995 to 50% in 2005, a growth rate of over 60%.
"Are you the person who is most responsible for doing the household grocery buying?"
Compiled from Newspoll's national telephone Omnibus of adults aged 18+
Next we did our own national telephone survey^ which confirmed 1 in 2 males now identify as either the main (38%) or the shared (12%) grocery buyer. Although this is well behind the 8 in 10 females who claim this role (including the 73% who claim the main responsibility), it warrants a strong message to advertisers and marketers to take heed: despite the obvious female domination of this role - over 1 in 3 (36%) grocery buyers are now male. What is driving this increase in male grocery buying?
MAINS
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Much more than “Trolley Pushers”?
Two thoughts come to mind with regard to driving the incidence of male GB's. The first is that more males are accompanying their partners to the supermarket and simply “trolley pushing”, and not really impacting product and brand decisions. The second is the rise of the lone person household, a phenomenon well documented by the ABS # as the fastest growing household type in Australia, and one that is likely to be most prevalent as early as 2006. |
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So we went a little further with our research. Firstly we noted that of all male GB's (estimated by our survey at around 3.8 million), only 24% claimed to be sharing the role – and therefore unlikely to be just pushing the trolley. Further, our survey showed that 62% of our male grocery buyers claimed that they make all the brand decisions for every product they buy (although we understand that some female household heads will dispute this). A further 16% reckon they make a majority of brand decisions. A finding leading us to conclude that men are much more than mere trolley pushers. In fact nearly 8 in 10 (78%) of the near 4 million male grocery buyers claim to be significant brand decision makers. Only 6% claimed they had little or no influence on brand choice.
“When you go to the supermarket to buy groceries, which of the following best describes you?”
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Total Male GB's |
| Base: |
n=243 |
| For every product you purchase, you personally decide which brand to buy |
62% |
| For the majority of the products you purchase, you personally decide brands to buy, however for a small number of products you buy the brand is chosen by someone else |
16% |
| For about half of the products you purchase you decide on the brand, for the other half of the products the brand is chosen by someone else |
15% |
| You only choose the brands for some of the products you buy, whilst someone else in the household asks you to buy specific brands for most products |
5% |
| For none of the products you purchase you decide on the brands, all the brands are chosen by someone else in the household |
1% |
| Other |
2% |
Why is this so?
Firstly around half (46%) of the 62% of male grocery buyers who make all the brand decisions, claim they do so because they live alone – fuelling our lone household theory. A further 1 in 5 (21%) claim to also do all the shopping and/or cooking. While making a majority of brand decisions (16%), was driven by a number of factors including; pleasing others – i.e. buying brands that others like (21%), being the one doing all the shopping and cooking (18%), and choosing on price or value (17%). So it seems that males' presence and authority in the shopping aisles is real and truly on the rise.
Connecting with male GB's?
So in summary, marketers and advertisers (and us researchers), should take heed of this rising phenomenon, keep a close eye on this trend and think seriously, if not already, about how we reach and communicate to this growing and significant grocery buyer segment.
In the meantime what products or services do you have that could benefit from better targeting, communication, and connection with the emerging empowered male GB segment.
SECOND HELPINGS!
Want to know more?
We are happy to provide more information on any of the information in Knowledge Bites. To get dessert please forward your requests to Derek at:
derek@dandmresearch.com.au
or call us on 02 9565 2655.
In the 'SPRING PLUS' edition of Knowledge Bites we'll bring you a report on the Australian Metrosexual: 'Moisturise - YES, Metrosexual No' - so stay tuned!
SAUCES
^Male Grocery Buyer Study, D&M Research 2005 – National Telephone Survey n=1,000
* Newspoll Market Research, Omnibus Data 1990 - 2005
# ABS 2002a, Australian Demographic Statistics, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Russ Walden
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