ARLINGTON, Va. — The Food Marketing Institute here and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Washington, on Wednesday announced their support for a research study on how consumers use brand websites and how the use of these websites impacts shoppers’ in-store buying behavior.
Accenture, comScore and dunnhumbyUSA will conduct the study to help CPG marketers increase the value of their digital marketing expenditures. The results of the study will be available this spring.
“Retailers are keenly aware of the number of sources that compete for a customer’s attention when it comes to grocery shopping,” said Patrick Walsh, senior vice president of industry relations, education and research at FMI, in a statement. “This study will provide valuable insight about how best to reach shoppers with brand information and provide the shopper with the important information they seek.”
“The primary goal of CPG manufacturers is to serve consumers as efficiently and as effectively as possible,” noted Denny Belcastro, GMA’s executive vice president of industry affairs and membership services. “This research will allow GMA member companies and their retail trading partners to do just that by enhancing the industry’s understanding of what information consumers are looking for online and using in their purchasing decisions.”
The study will be based on an integrated panel of 1 million U.S. Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to have their online behavior continuously measured and matched to dunnhumbyUSA’s in-store brand-buying data. This integrated panel will provide a single-source, privacy-protected data mart that contains each panelist’s online activities and their in-store buying behavior.