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HE CtJIVIVETVT QXJESTIOTV How Important to Marketing Strategy Is the "Heavy User"? By DIK WARREN TWEDT Director of Marketing Ressarcfc Oscar Mayer & Company Mpdison, Wisconsin months of 1962) to such high-incidence products as toilet tissue (98% purchasing in 1962). The bars in the accompanying, chart are divided into three parts. First, the nonusers are shown. In 1962, there were 42% of Chicago households that did not purchase lemon-lime beverages, and therefore accounted for 0% of purchase volume. Arranging the purchasing households in order of purchase volume, and cutting the households at the median purchase point (so that we have a "light using half" and a "heavy using half"), it becomes apparent that one heavy half hottsehold is equal in purchase volume to nine households in the light half. Even the category with least purchase concentration—toilet tissue—indicates that the heavy half of users purchase three times as much as the light half. Two things are unusual about this chart. One is that the purchase concentration is so markedly skewed. The other is that the degree of skewness is so homogeneous (except for toilet tissue, the range of volume accounted for by the top half of purchasing households is only 10 percentage points, from 91 to 81). Detailed analysis reveals that this purchase concentration is not a simple function of such obvious demographic variables as income or size of household. Nor is the heavy-using household likely to pay less per unit. What can be said is that the heavy-using household buys more, buys more often, and buys more different brands. Since the heavy-using household is not readily identified in terms of other characteristics, we are left with the tautology that "a heavy user is a heavy user." But direct measurement of product usage is likely to be more efficient than regression analyses and profile matching. Suppose, for example, that a beer brewer wants to compare two media on marketing researchers screen reORDINARILY spondents for product usage before proceeding with questions about attitudes, opinions, or behavior. Thus, a nonsmoker would rarely be included in a test of cigarette advertising copy, nor would a woman who never bakes cakes be asked to state her fiavor preference for a cake mix. But there is a logical step beyond this dichotomy of users and nonusers—a step that is too seldom taken—and that is to let consumers "vote with their poeketbooks" by weighting their responses according to amount consumed. As an example, a household that consumes two six-packs of soft drinks in a given month would be weighted twice as heavily as a household that consumes only one six-pack. And if another household were to consume 30 six-packs during the same time period, then to the manufacturer the opinions of that household should be 30 times as important as those represented by the household that buys only one package. It is obvious, of course, that some families buy more of a given product category than other families. But how much more? Is purchase concentration sufficiently skewed to make it worth while to consider the "heavy user" as a distinct market segment? The answer is a resounding "YES." Since 1947, the Chicago Tribune has maintained a panel of some 700 households that report all purchases in a weekly purchase diary. As a service to advertisers the Tribune reports these data bimonthly for about 90 product categories. By special arrangement with Pierre Martineau, Marketing- and Research Director of the Chicago Tribune, I have made analyses of the degrees of purchase concentration in 18 product categories—ranging from such lowincidence products as canned hash (with 32% of households reporting one or more purchases in 12 Journal of Markelins, Vol. 2S Uanufiry, 19G4), pp. 71-72. 71 72 Journal of Marketing, January, 1964 Non "Light half" holf" Householcis ^ 42 ! LBmon-lime Colas Concenlrated frozen orange juice Soaps detergenii Toilet tissue Annual purchote concentration in 18 product categorias. (Source'. Chicago Tribune Conmmer Panel, ipecial analysei of 1962 data). the basis of cost-per-1,000 circulation. Assume the following: (Level 1) Circulation Cost Cost Per 1,000 A B 1,000,000 $35,000 $3.50 2,000,000 $66,000 $3.30 it would appear that medium B is more efficient on a cost basis. But if we are able to measure the number of beer drinkers In each medium's audience, the picture changes: (Level 21 Number of beer drinkers Cost per 1,000 beer drinkers , 420,000 $8.30 B 1.200,000 $5.50 On this basis, medium B is still ahead; in fact, it has widened its lead over A. If we can measure the number of heawj beer drinkers (the half of ali beer-drinking households that consume 88% of the volume) in each audience, the picture changes again : (Level 3) A B Number of heavy beer drinkers 260,000 400,000 Cost per 1,000 heavy beer drinkers $13.50 $16.50 Now, it becomes clear that oa a cost basis it is considerably more efficient to use medium A to reach the half of beer drinkers who are nearly nine times as important (in volume drunk) as the light half of beer drinkers. Following this point of view, a network television show would not have just one rating, but as many different ratings as there are potential sponsors of the program. Advertising media are already adjusting to marketing efforts based upon segmentation of prospects. Time magazine now offers rates for ads in copies that go only to physicians and dentists, and another rate is available for copies going to college students. The business paper. Bakers Review, now offers a split by weight of buying infJuence, so that advertisers can buy only that third of the circulation that goes to larger bakeries. It seems most likely that volume of product usage will eventually replace standardized demographic breaks in marketing survey research, and particularly in syndicated research services such as MRCA. Nielsen ratings. Pulse. Starch. Gallup-Robinson, and Schwerin.