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Case studies on cohorting

MM: Would you just walk us through one or two case studies?

TC: Yes. We have some well-known clients for which we’ve done some great work, such as P&G, GlaxoSmithKline, Pacific Gas & Electric and American Honda, and in the area of consumer segmentation or cohorting-an area for which Targetbase is most well-known.

MM: Would you give us a quick primer on cohorting?

Certainly. If you look at our packaged goods clients like P&G and General Mills, they have a tremendous portfolio of brands. P&G came to us many years ago with the question of how they could leverage consumer insights-a better understanding of their consumers and what mix of brands to promote to each person on their very large database.

This resulted in turning the old model of brand marketing on its head: it was not about the brand; it’s about the consumer. They asked us to develop a mix of brands that a consumer would be interested in-that P&G has a right to win.

We often find among large portfolios of brands natural groupings or segments of consumers-what we refer to often times as a “cohort”-a group of consumers that tend to utilize a group of brands or a mix of brands in a particular way.

Originally for P&G and later for General Mills and others, we developed a methodology for identifying those unique segments or cohorts within their consumer base.

We identified them in such a way that P&G and General Mills could then know not only who they are from a behavioral and attitudinal standpoint, but then what products they were likely to be interested in…thus how o drive relevant messaging, offers, etc. to optimize their sales at the individual consumer level.

Joe Six-Pack and Hockey Moms

MM: Could you give expand your definition of a cohort? We just went through a election, where candidates and pundits used cohort-like terms of Joe Six-Pack and Hockey Moms.

Yes. Absolutely. There are certainly broad conventions. But one of the services that we offer our clients is a truly customized approach to segmentation and cohorting, specific to their brands and customers-unique differences.

There are certainly themes that crop up on a regular basis, but it is actually a customized approach — as opposed to, say, the traditional prism cluster type of approach. Where every neighborhood in the United States is dubbed a particular name, to fit within that prism cluster.

It is certainly consumer-centric, but it’s in the context of a particular brand or group of brands.

MM: If I understand that right, Trae, traditional consumer-segmentation efforts use census and other forms of compiled data such as credit histories and other forms of household data, creating a cluster or basically a neighborhood. Now that entails the presupposition that everyone in that neighborhood will buy a similar set of things; that consumers that share similar socioeconomic backgrounds and motivations will buy the same stuff. However, in reality, each household of a particular neighborhood often represents a huge difference of consumer appetites, criteria, and mind-styles. So the idea of Cohorting takes another approach: rather than working from the physical data (households of a neighborhood) to develop a data set, you now work backwards consumer appetites, criteria, and mind-styles, creating logical set that you call a cohort. This approach of cohorts or logical groupings of buyers makes neighborhoods like Swiss Cheese-where each hole represents a distinct set of buying criteria and, when group together, create a cohort.

Absolutely. In our approach to Cohorting, we incorporate attitudinal data (from surveys, interviews, focus groups) demographic data (from consumer or business databases) and behavioral data (from websites and syndicated sources). We certainly see big differences within neighborhoods along attitudinal and behavioral lines.

A lot of it has to do with the methodology we employ. For example, we may begin with broad and nationally-representative syndicated data like a Simmons or an MRI, enabling us to incorporate many of those things. Not just geographic, demographic data, but attitudes and behaviors across a broad swath of areas including brand usage.

Other times, where available, we’ll start with our client’s customer database-if they have a database-mapping those customers into syndicated or third-party data, or direct primary research.

By the way, since we’re talking about Targetbase and our approach…we define ourselves as data-agnostic and make it a point of differentiation. We’re not trying to sell data; it’s not part of what we provide. We don’t want bias our results and outcomes. It’s really more about the outcome, about the solution that we’re trying to deliver, and not about selling data.

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