If you work in Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), it’s likely that you already know the definition of a category, and of category management. Nevertheless, it’s important to define what we mean by those terms, so here’s the quick version:

What is a “category” from a CPG perspective?

The simplest definition is that a category is a group of products that are often or typically purchased together, or that have many similar characteristics. For instance, the hair care category contains products that all have to do with maintaining a person’s hair: shampoo, conditioner, hair dyes, etc.

What is Category Management?

Category Management, which began evolving as a concept in the late 1980s, is essentially a way for manufacturers to collaborate with retailers on retail and marketing strategies for specific product categories. It provides the essential language, process framework, and metrics for brands to communicate strategic and tactical recommendations backed by data.

As Category Management became established as a system, it created a structured approach for managing pricing, promotion, assortment, and shelf merchandising decisions. The traditional process excelled at understanding category behavior – answering critical questions about who buys the category, what they purchase, where they shop, and how they make their selections.

However, the initial framework had a notable gap: it provided limited insight into why specific shopping behaviors occur.

Category Management grows up

Although Category Management created a powerful way for manufacturers and retailers to cooperatively grow entire product categories, creating wins for both groups, it ultimately needed to evolve to encompass the changing needs of retail markets, as well as shopper preferences and attitudes.

Recognizing this need, the Category Management discipline has evolved to incorporate shopper insights as a core component. This integration helps reveal the underlying motivations that drive or prevent shopper actions along the path to purchase. 

Getting to “why”

While shopper behaviors (what people actually do when shopping) have always played a large role in Category Management, modern CM now includes shopper insights as a core area of study and a key piece of CPG brands’ approach to their categories.

Where studying shopper behavior provides the “what” of the shopper journey, shopper insights provide the “why.” Without an understanding of why shoppers make the choices they make, brands are forced to make far-reaching decisions based on guesswork or hunches.

Today, market research offers a better approach: to study not only shopper’s actions but also their attitudes and internal decision-making landscape.

How we get good shopper insights

Understanding shoppers is a key goal of market research for CPG brands, and there are a number of tools that researchers use to get the insights needed to build that kind of understanding. Here are just a few:

Attitudinal studies:

At C+R, we use online communities, in-depth interviews, quantitative surveys, and more to gain a deep understanding of your brand’s consumers, their attitudes toward your products, the brand as a whole, and competing brands in the category.

This kind of study helps find areas where brands can communicate more effectively with their consumers, and build the kind of relationship that keeps people coming back year after year, whether they’re shopping online or in-person.

Shop-alongs:

We follow along with and talk with consumers while they shop to learn more about their thought processes, decision points, and how they ultimately choose the product they take home.

In-home Usage Testing:

We take a deeper look at how people actually use your products at home, which helps us build a picture of how the product can better fit into people’s habits, schedules, and thought processes. This is where brand loyalty is created, and where the best CPG brands create the relationships that put them at the top of their categories.

Customized shopper insights for your brand

At C+R Research, we understand the importance of combining behavioral data with deep shopper insights. That’s why our approach integrates multiple research methodologies to provide a comprehensive understanding that supports effective Category Management strategies, now and in the future.

If you’d like to know more about how brands benefit from customized market research, check out a couple of the case studies here below, or get in touch with one of our CPG experts today to find out how we can help your brand thrive.