In the previous articles, we have talked about identifying opportunities through share of wallet, streamlining products for changing consumer preferences and importance of identifying and focusing on the right shoppers for your brand.” Continuing with our example of snacks, let’s now look at how we can activate against these opportunities by really understanding consumers’ trip missions to minimize leakage.

As can be seen below, moderates spend most in grocery (48%), followed by club (18%) and Walmart (17%) on branded snacks outside of Target. Given the size of the spend in grocery, it is imperative that Target create an activation strategy to get some of those purchases back in its stores. To design an activation strategy, it is important to look at trip missions and understand when shoppers purchase snacks in Target as well as in grocery. Why? Because consumers’ trip missions – the primary objectives behind their shopping trips – heavily influence where they shop, the path they take through the store, price and promotional sensitivity and what they buy.

Branded snacks – Moderates: Spend by Channel

The next chart shows dollar distribution for branded snacks across four syndicated trip types. As you can see on the chart, branded snacks are purchased across all the trip missions at Target. However, in grocery, the majority of snacks are purchased in the ‘stock-up’ trip (*see below for definitions).

Branded snacks – Moderates: Trip Mission Dollars

This can further be refined using custom trip types to include key snack-related events, such as birthday party missions, holiday party missions, etc. Here, we will focus on stock-up trips and what drives the stock up trips in grocery. Using surveys, we can develop insights into drivers of the stock-up trip by channel and by target segment. For example, some of the leakage may be driven by assortment of a top brand at the other retailer. Once we understand the “why behind the buy” for certain shopper behavior, creating an activation strategy is easy.

Please contact Paul.Auberry@IRIworldwide.com or Sridhar.Pankanti@IRIworldwide.com to find out how IRI’s TCN platform, in combination with our survey and segmentation capability, can give you powerful insights to prioritize growth opportunities at Target.