Recent Consumption vs Price: What Really Drives Brand Choice? | Europanel Business Challenge, Part 1

Does what shoppers recently ate and drank influence the brand they choose next, even more than price? New research suggests it can. In the first part of Europanel's new Business Challenge series, Oliver Koll talks to Kathleen Cleeren, Professor of Marketing at KU Leuven, about a factor most brand strategies overlook: recent consumption, not just purchase history. The study combined UK household panel data from Worldpanel by Numerator (more than 25,000 households) with daily consumption diaries from 3,770 households, covering almost 200 food and drink categories and more than 500,000 brand choices. Key findings: • Recent consumption can outweigh price: a one-standard-deviation increase in recent consumption of a brand raises its choice probability by 10.2%, compared with a 6.4% drop for the same increase in price • The effect is strongest for higher-priced brands and for households on a tight budget • It matters most for brands a shopper has bought only once or twice • Recent consumption also makes shoppers more likely to buy in the category again, even after controlling for what's still in the cupboard Kathleen also shares three practical actions for brand owners and retailers: encourage usage at home, use in-store sampling for premium lines, and support the uncertain shopper. A must-watch for anyone in FMCG, retail or consumer strategy. About the Business Challenge In each episode, we ask leading scientists in marketing and retailing to share a recent piece of research that's relevant to practitioners in FMCG. About Europanel Europanel is a partnership between Worldpanel by Numerator and YouGov. 📩 To discuss what these findings mean for your categories: understand@europanel.com 🌐 https://www.europanel.com 👉 Follow Europanel on LinkedIn:   / europanel   #BrandGrowth #ShopperBehaviour #FMCGInsights