How Quaker Oats Uses Customer Understanding Groups

“Very few of us have the luxury of marketing to a consumer who is
just like ourselves,” says Carrie Heinonen, Innovation Consultant
and former Marketing Manager of The Quaker Oats Company.
“Consumer understanding groups, or internal consumer cohorts,
allow you to really get into the heads of consumers.”

The aim of a consumer understanding group (CUG) is to have as
many people in your organization understand the consumer as
possible.

The makeup of these groups is driven by the way your company
makes decisions. The more people you need buy-in from in bringing
a product to market, the larger the CUG you'll want. A typical
team, according to Heinonen, might consist of people from market
research, the financial team, R&D, PR, and perhaps your ad
agency.

Heinonen advocates a two-pronged approach for CUGs:

Approach #1. Educational

Invite experts to come and discuss the psychological and
physiological makeup of your target market. Also, “read magazines
and watch TV with the mindset of your target group, do everything
you can to think like the consumer on a daily basis.”

Approach #2 Experiential

Become involved on a major basis with the demographic you’re
targeting.

“The experiential piece is what a lot of people miss,” Heinonen
says. “Many companies will rely on focus groups or casual
interactions,” and consider that experiential — but it’s not.

For example, a company targeting the 50+ crowd might look at
their aunts and uncles and make decisions based on these
observations. Or even worse, according to Heinonen, is the CEO
who brings a prototype of a toy home to his young children. The
kids love it, so the CEO puts the product into mass production.

Instead of relying on casual interactions such as these, consumer
understanding groups become involved, intimately rather than
casually, with the groups they’re targeting. “You have to
interact with the consumer in their own environment,” Heinonen
says.

Here are some examples:

-> If you’re targeting youth, organize your members and coach a
youth soccer team. If you’re setting up a group meeting, have it
at a Chuck E Cheese’s.

-> If your product targets Hispanics, get together and attend
Sunday mass at a church in a Hispanic community.

-> To get in touch with a particular type of woman, you might go
shopping with consumers from that demographic and help them
prepare a family meal.

But how do you get all your CUG members to commit to the time
involved in experiential research?

The first step is to clearly define how the company will benefit.

“You’re saving time and getting more bang for your buck because
the product is better grounded in ideas that speak to your
consumer,” Heinonen says. R&D groups don’t spend valuable time
putting together ideas that the marketing team later declares
dogs.

All departments with a stake in the final product are involved in
the consumer understanding group from the start; everyone is on
the same page from the get-go.

“The time commitment can be a daunting task,” Heinonen concedes.
“But what they say about many hands making light work is true.
You give separate units within the CUG smaller pieces of
responsibility, so it’s not so daunting.”

“You also don’t waste all that time at focus groups,” Heinonen
adds.

Besides convincing CUG members that it is worth their time, you
have to make it fun and interesting, so members learn from the
exercise.

For example, Heinonen kicked off one CUG with an event that she
knew the members would like: tickets to the premiere of the new
Harry Potter movie. “We made it an experience that built
understanding of the age group,” Heinonen says. “Afterwards we
discussed why particular scenes would be appealing to a 10-year-
old, and why moviegoers liked particular characters.”