Download How Important to Marketing Strategy Is the "Heavy User"?

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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.