Shoppers want the facts, just the facts, to make a basic decision…will this purchase satisfy a need. Persuasive wants are for better times. IRI’s Times and Trends report examines the shoppers’ fixed focus on their household bottom lines and its impact on CPG and retailer messaging.  They suggest the following to marketers:

* Product Marketing: Collaborate with key retail or manufacturer partners to facilitate consumers` list-making efforts with innovative programs combining convenience and savings, such as buy one/get one and discounts on combined meal ingredients/components, etc.
* Customer Marketing: Work with key retail or manufacturer partners to create cross-merchandising and cross-promotional programs which feature products that are complementary to targeted trip types.
* In-Store Marketing: Closely tie in-store efforts with externally-targeted
promotional campaigns to reinforce/solidify purchase decisions made prior to entering the retail environment.

In short, focus on real and practical benefits.

The question is will these changes be permanent. We keep asking this question, because, well, trying to predict the future is kind of fun, but also, because the answer seems to change as does the evidence to support the possible outcomes.

Dechert-Hampe and RetailWire released a study in their Retail Next series entitled “Fad or Trend?: Will Recessionary Shopping Behavior Continue?”  In this report, researchers concluded that shoppers have made short-term adjustments that will likely revert back to a level of normalcy once the recession trauma subsides.

Take a look at this report and then weigh in here. Do you believe that this generation will be defined by the current events in the way that the depression generation was or is frugal the new black?