Glass half full or half empty? Either way – there’s room for more wine
Picture the scene…Lady in her thirties jumping on the tube at Leicester Square, getting frustrated at the ridiculously slow transfer between Piccadilly and District line, doing a light jog home from the station, opening the front door to be greeted by Peppa Pig blaring from the TV, wrestling over-tired two year old into bath, reading a bedtime story (or three…), putting sleepy toddler to bed….GLASS OF WINE!
This is me most days and is by far my most common I’d say over half of my alcohol-drinking is this post-work rush around moment, so that’s a lot of occasions. However, you’d also need to know that on this occasion I don’t tend to drink much (one glass max, it is a school night after all…) and my habits are very entrenched – it’s a crisp Sauvignon Blanc or a smooth red – no other alcohol enters my radar.
If you want me to try your brand, this is not the best or easiest occasion to target. I’m in full-blown passive ‘type 1’ decision making at this point; getting me to change my behaviour in this moment will be a tough ask. You’d be much better placed targeting my weekly Thursday-night catch up with the girls – I drink more (although not more than my daily allowance – obviously!) and am always looking for something new or different to offer or take with me. In this occasion I’m much more aware of the choices available and will make more active (type 2) decision making. Obviously it won’t be completely ‘type 2’ thinking as there will still be a range of behavioural bias influencing my decision making but I will at least be more receptive to what your brand is trying to say. Tell my why your drink is great for this occasion and I may well believe you. Yes, I may try different brands on this occasion (and therefore be less loyal to you) but at least you’d enter my radar, then, who knows, maybe you’d eventually be in my mind after the third read-through of ‘Peppa pig – fun at the fair’.
Of course, not everyone’s post-work rush around moment looks like mine. Chatting with a male colleague, he mentioned that this is the moment when he’s actually more open to trying new things, it’s when he goes out with his mates to the pub that his behaviour is particularly ingrained – “just a lager” will suffice.
When looking for occasion-led opportunities it’s easy to get dazzled by size and forget that there are a whole host of other factors that will determine how easy or difficult it’ll be for you to get a piece of the pie – how many other brands are also trying to ‘own’ this space, how entrenched is the behaviour, where is your brand currently used, where does it have a good fit against needs and what just feels right based on all you know about your own brand? This applies to almost all categories, not just alcohol. Yes, of course size matters but it’s not everything.
Choosing where to play is just the start, next you need to work out how to ‘own’ the space. Even when you’ve chosen an occasion that you want your brand to go after, there are further decisions to be made about who to target and how to target them to enable the precise planning needed to win in this space – if you take the example of me and my colleague, the approach you’d take would be very different depending on which one of us you were talking to. Of course, this is assuming you want to go down the occasion-led opportunity route in the first place, you may want to turn the market map around and look at opportunities from a need or people-lens or look at all three. Decisions, decisions!
If you’re interested in hearing more about how we approach sizing, segmenting and understanding the opportunities in your brand’s market landscape as well as how we approach alcohol research here at Incite – register to our mailing list or just give us a call.
