Thinking natural, but not buying it
Displaying a textbook example of a phenomenon researchers encounter often - the difficulty consumers experience in trying to get their real-world purchasing decisions to match their ideals and beliefs - New York-based Roper Starch Worldwide Inc. has discovered that while folks love the idea of natural, environmentally friendly products, they don't often buy the currently available products which fit that description. Organically grown fruits and vegetables drew the highest response of the 10 products the firm asked about: 53 percent of 1,000 adults surveyed (face-to-face in respondents' homes) think that organically grown products are in some way better than fruits and vegetables produced using pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Natural cereal (47 percent) also proved popular. On the low end of the scale, only 19 percent of those surveyed think natural deodorant is better than "unnatural" deodorant. The other seven products asked about were free-range chicken (43 percent), free-range eggs (39 percent) and natural cleaning products (31 percent), soft drinks (29 percent), body soap (28 percent), shampoo (24 percent) and toothpaste (23 percent). Much larger percentages of respondents don't know whether natural products are in some way better than think natural products are not as good. Natural cleaning products drew the worst marks: 14 percent think they are not as good as standard products.
But folks don't necessarily buy natural. In the previous year, only 42 percent of those surveyed had purchased any of the 10 natural products asked about. Natural cereal, which 30 percent bought, was the most popular purchase. The biggest disparity was discovered in regard to free-range chicken - that from animals raised on farms that don't use cages or chemicals in the production process: While 43 percent of respondents think it is better, only 6 percent had purchased it in the previous year. Only 19 percent had purchased organically grown fruits or vegetables. While Roper Starch refrains from speculating, based on the survey results, about the reasons for the disparity between consumers' opinions of natural products and their willingness to buy them, but it's logical to assume that natural products' generally higher prices put some folks off them.
Brand loyalty bounces up off the mat
Industry sources have been bemoaning branded household products' performances at the supermarket checkout line. But the first batch of data gathered by St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Catalina Marketing Corp.'s Checkout Direct program indicates that consumers' loyalty to products in certain areas is strong. Checkout Direct links retailers' current check-cashing or other card-based program to the Catalina Marketing Network to deliver incentives based on the actual purchase behavior of household over time. Each time a shopper uses his or her card, purchase information is added to the computer data file for the household. When the shopper uses the card in the future, the Catalina Marketing Network accesses the computer file to provide targeted pre-purchase coupons. So far, the system has discovered 72 percent single-brand loyalty for premium juice, 72 percent for premium laundry detergent, 67 percent for feminine hygiene products, 66 percent for pet food, 66 percent for all-purpose cleaners, 63 percent for diet soft drinks, 58 percent for pasta sauce and 55 percentforready-to-eat canned soup. The program has also found that a vast majority of customers either always or never buy certain brands. The program currently reaches 5 million households in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Southern California.
Megabytes of computer news
Research companies must feel like overburdened traffic cops as they desperately try to figure out who's flying down the information interstate, who's sitting on the side of the road after a blowout and who's wandering around the side streets, confused. A number of the companies collecting data and interviewing computer users - and nonusers - have recently weighed in with their assessments of the situation as it stands. Of course, by the time you read this, everything will be different - the computer industry is a bit like a teenager that way.
New York-based FIND/SVP's American Information User Survey - consisting of focus groups, a random survey of 2,000 households, and a "boosted-sample" survey of 400 online service-user households - found reason to believe that 3.1 million households access the Internet. A third of them do not use a commercial service (e.g., Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online) to jump onto the 'Net. The survey found that among users, bulletin boards were the most popular online feature (55 percent). Online folks also often download software (46 percent), get and send personal e-mail (44 percent), access educational information (40 percent), transfer office files (40 percent) and use consumer online services (39 percent). Onliners are less inclined to hop on the uberbahn for bank-ing services (6 percent), to make purchases (13 percent) or to get travel info and buy tickets (17 percent). Surprisingly, only 26 percent of online jockeys do the chat (26 percent), even though that seems to be the aspect of networks that gets the most publicity. Onliners tend to watch less TV than nonliners, but they are more likely to watch certain types of programming, such as documentaries, C-SPAN and personal finance shows.
Based on what it came up with in its American Information User Survey, FIND/S VP estimates that Americans are willing to spend as much as $5 billion on online services, $10 billion when you throw in entertainment options. Current spending on online services, the company says, is roughly $1 billion. The study used current spending on cable TV as a benchmark. Some 55 percent of the households surveyed would be willing to spend as much or more on online services as they do on cable.
CDB Research & Consulting Inc., New York, conducted a phone survey that turned up a couple more interesting computer-related tidbits. Consumers looking for information during the computer-buying process said they're consulting articles and ads in general magazines and newspapers just as often as they 're diving into the glossy world of computer publications. Of the 500 folks surveyed, 38 percent said they would read articles in computer magazines, but 37 percent said they would peruse articles elsewhere. Similarly, 33 percent would learn from ads in computer rags, but 27 percent would look at ads in other magazines and newspapers.
CDB also found that those looking for a home computer consider the reputation of a manufacturer's noncomputer products as important as the reputation of its computers. Some 91 percent of those surveyed said a manufacturer's reputation for reliable products would make them more comfortable about buying its computer products. Somewhat surprisingly, only 71 percent were assured by knowing that a manufacturer makes primarily computer equipment.
Connecticut Research Group Inc., Westport, Conn., completed a nation-wide telephone probability survey of 1,200 households and found that folks are aware of leading PC brands, but have great difficulty identifying individual models in a brand family. Though the technogeeks out there can rattle off specific info, few others can describe specific models or associate them with particular features or benefits. Apple, Compaq and IBM have generated 80 percent to 90 percent overall PC brand awareness. The survey also discovered that consumers' tentativeness upon entering the PC market causes the buying process to go slowly, and consequently, the 1994 household penetration rate is down from the 1993 rate. Still, household penetration grew from 25 percent to 33 percent between January 1993 and July 1994. The company believes 40 percent of all homes will have computers by the end of 1995.
Connecticut Research also did a telephone survey of 600 small, medium and large retailing, manufacturing and service business and found that product service most dramatically increased PC brand loyalty. Virtually all of the businesses queried had purchased at least one PC in the previous year, and two-thirds were brand loyal. The third that did switch brands most often did so because of shifts in system requirements. The second most often mentioned reason for brand replacement was unsatisfactory product service and support.
According to a survey conducted by Lakewood Publications, Minneapolis, training and development professionals think the biggest challenge facing their organizations is dealing with rapid advances in computer technology. More than half of the 297 individuals queried (55 percent) believe it is "true or very true" that changes in their companies have resulted in employees becoming more dependent on information technology. Half of all organizations use computers for training. CD-interactive- and CD-ROM-based training systems are expected to grow most rapidly in coming years.
Athletes: We love them, we hate their money
Fans may jump on and off the bandwagon according to a team's performances on the ice, field or court, but apparently once they lock onto an individual athlete, they don't let go. Sports Media Index - based on a national consumer mail panel survey of 2,410 people 13 and older conducted by American Sports DataInc.,Hartsdale,N.Y. - shows that eight of the 10 most recognizable athletes in America are retired. Only footballer Joe Montana is still a full-time player; Arnold Palmer rarely plays competitive golf anymore. Magic Johnson tops the list of most recognizable athletes. He is followed by Muhammed Ali, Mike Jordan, Sugar Ray Leonard, Chris Evert, Joe Namath, Larry Bird, Montana, Palmer and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Of the 25 most recognizable sports stars, only three - Evert, Martina Navratilova (No. 18) and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (No. 25) - are women. When it comes to athletes viewed as most influential on purchase decisions, Jordan is the king and Montana is the prince. Shaquille O 'Neal, who didn't even make the top 25 most recognized athletes, is the third most influential. Nolan Ryan, Johnson, Bird, Wayne Gretzky, Bo Jackson, Chas Barkley and Palmer round out the top 10. The flip side of the public's love affair with pro athletes is its disdain for the heaping piles money they make. Before the baseball strike began, Roper Starch surveyed 1,996 people, only 2 percent of whom feel that pro athletes are underpaid. At the same time, 87 percent think athletes are overpaid. Sportsters shouldn't feel picked on, though, an equally large majority of those surveyed feel celebrities and entertainers are overpaid, too. Folks also think lawyers (83 percent), presidents of major corporations (77 percent), senators and congressmen (69 percent), doctors (68 percent) and TV news anchors (62 percent) get too much money for what they do. People believe restaurant workers are criminally underpaid (82 percent). Public school teachers (66 percent), secretaries (63 percent), and cops (58 percent) rounded out the shortchanged list.
Pushy bras get snapped back by the gals
The September issue of "EDK Forecast" showed once again that when it comes to research on the front edge, EDK Associates bodicely goes where no man has gone before. The New York research company sounded out 500 adult women nationwide on their feelings about the state of bras and the, ahem, upshot of advertisements for the mechanical marvel that is the Wonderbra.
EDK reports that 36 percent of its respondents buy sexy lingerie to make themselves feel a little tingle of excitement. (Of course, 37 percent get the same thrill out of a new hairstyle.) Among women under 35,48 percent say picking up a new bra makes them feel most sexy. Dismissing price as a factor, though, only 15 percent of the ladies sun eyed go for the push-up bra. An equal portion of the crowd likes the black lace number, while 27 percent prefer pastel lace. Least scintillating but most popular - among all age groups - is the white cotton bra (36 percent). The strongest markets for the Wonderbra and other new push-up models is women 25 to 35 and those earning between $35,000 and $44,999. In general, though, women vastly prefer comfort to sex appeal, and they complain that finding a brassiere that offers both is tough. (Though 40 percent said they've managed the feat.)
Though 76 percent of women think bra ads are designed to be sexy for men. not for women, only 37 percent feel at all inferior to the perfect-skinned models in the ads. Virtually all women (97 percent) buy bras to please themselves, not the men in their lives, but 47 percent of those surveyed - and 63 percent of those under 35 - said the men in their lives notice a new bra without being, um, prompted. One thing leads to another, and pretty soon the survey finds that only 36 percent of women under 35 remove their own bras during love-making sessions. Whew, time for a chilly shower.
The call for lower rates
With new legislation set to open long-distance markets to increased competition, one would think consumers' rates would go down, but a study conducted by Chilton Research Services, Radnor, Pa., shows that phone users think they're going to get rung up with bigger bills. Pressure on the Interexchange Carriers (lECs) will come from the Regional Bell Operating Companies, "Baby Bells," to whom the lECs already pay sizeable access fees. While the lECs are chagrined about the BBs' entrance into their end of the phone service market, two out of five of those surveyed think the cost of local service will go up and that long-distance rates will go down. Another third thinks both will cost more. Survey results indicate to Chilton that three out of every four dollars of the $69.3 billion spent on phone service in the U.S. pays for long-distance calls. The average monthly household tab is $60 - and that doesn't even include the cost of three-way calls and call waiting. Chilton predicts that heavy phone users ($100 per month) will be most likely to switch to service provided by the Bells. Chilton's findings are compiled in a report called "Winners and Losers in the Long Distance Race."
Car travel: Same as it ever was
Americans love their cars and love their highways. Each year, according to a survey conducted by Beta Research, Syosset, N.Y., for Good Housekeeping and Chevrolet, families in this country put more than 155 billion miles on their wheels. The survey discovered that while parents share the preparation duties, dad handles the bulk of the driving in 68 percent of the families polled. Supporting another stereotype, the survey found that women are more likely to ask for directions - which is often necessary because somebody gets 97 percent of road travelers lost at one point or another.
Activity/coloring books are the most popular in-car diversion for kids: 71 percent of families on the road have some kind of interactive books in the back seat. Of course, this is the '90s, so 22 percent of families traveling bring hand-held video games; 18 percent have a personal tape or CD player in the car; 17 percent bring along a pillow.
Families report that fruit, dried and otherwise, is the most oft-packed snack (35 percent), but moms may have snowed researchers on that count - chips and popcorn followed hard behind (34 percent). Three percent of traveling families do not eat in the car.
Game-wise, the license-plate checkoff routine still has plenty of fans - 32 percent reported passing the miles with it. The ABC/alphabet game (whatever that is) was noted by 17 percent. Bingo still has some devotees (8 percent) and 20 questions andcard games also drew some nods (6 percent each). Believe it or not, "Old MacDonald" is still the most popular car song.
And yes, "Are we almost there?" remains the most often heard in-car comment: 74 percent of the families in the survey said it was inescapable and repeatedly repeated.