Omnichannel Tackles The ‘Super Consumer’

Omnichannel commerce can take on multiple facets. It most commonly is associated with providing a means to shop in stores, online or via mobile devices, thus enabling consumers to shop virtually anywhere, and at any time. Equally important, however, is the ability to identify which consumers would buy the most, or be the most easily persuaded to make a purchase.

In the end, understanding where and how consumers shop, what they buy, and why all work together to meet the common end goal: grow sales. That doesn’t necessarily mean going out to find new customers. Some companies are finding success growing sales right from their own customer bases. And those finding the most success are able to identify a category’s “Super Consumers,” a recent Nielsen report suggests.

Super Consumers are those customers who spend a lot and engage a lot, and companies are identifying with such individuals by tailoring their marketing and sales efforts to boost incremental sales, even when category sales are flat. “Super Consumers sit at the intersection of heavy users and highly involved consumers, which means they’re both emotionally and economically involved in the category,” the report notes.

Such U.S. consumers account for 10 percent of a category’s customers and anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of a brand’s sales, according to Nielsen’s research. As such, they represent a key opportunity for brands looking for growth when growth is elusive.

“When companies prioritize these Super Consumers they see unprecedented growth, with a direct correlation between brand share of category dollars and brand share of Super Consumer spend,” Greg Dring, Nielsen’s head of demand strategy for the Pacific, said in the report.

Looking across all fast-moving consumer goods categories in Australia, for example, Nielson found a group of consumers in every category that spend a lot and care a lot. On average, they make up 10 percent to 15 percent of households, and more than double that in sales, Dring said. “They have a hidden appetite to buy more even in the most unlikely product categories,” he noted.

When considering Super Consumers, rather than the more ‘traditionally used’ category users, lapsed users or switchers, companies open up a whole slew of possibilities and insights that hadn’t previously been recognized to drive growth, according to Nielsen’s report.

As an example, Nielsen cited Kraft’s dilemma when its Velveeta “cheese food” began experiencing flat to declining sales as demand shifted to natural and nonprocessed cheeses. Kraft identified a strong Super Consumer base that hadn’t been previously tapped into – the “hot melted cheese Super Consumer,” and it identified Velveeta cheese as a growth opportunity.

“This Super Consumer represented 10 percent of Velveeta’s consumers, but drove 30 percent to 40 percent of sales and more than 50 percent of profit,” Nielsen said. “Their unifying characteristic? A love and passion for the product and a diverse range of uses for it.”

By viewing Velveeta in the broader melted cheese category rather than the previous cheese loaf, Kraft was able to reinvent the way Velveeta could be used. And the subsequent broadening of the range of new product launches so far has delivered more than $100 million in sales for Kraft, Nielsen said.

As the report suggests, when manufacturers and retailers work together to activate the Super Consumer, the benefits go beyond just the category a brand plays in. Activating against the group of consumers who are already engaged and listening, including through social media, retail and product websites and mobile apps, can be the key to unlocking a layer of growth that might otherwise remain elusive. As such, Super Consumers are are prime targets for omnichannel marketing to go along with the concept’s commerce aspects.