Slicing and Dicing the American Population
Slicing and Dicing the American Population
Welcome to this special issue of Confectioner dedicated to
scrutinizing our nation’s many subsets—broken out along gender,
age and ethnic lines. We’ve titled our issue “Selling to
Today’s Consumer.” Using the singular form of the word consumer
is just a stylistic convention, of course. We’re talking consumers
with an “s”—consumers in all their intriguing,
challenging, and multi-faceted complexity. The whole point of our issue is
to examine the diversity of our nation and to provide some practical advice
for better targeting the many disparate groups that comprise it.
More than ever, the U.S. population is a melting pot,
and that reality is not about to change in the years ahead. By the year
2050, non-Hispanic Whites will make up only 50 percent of the population!
Anyone who remains unconvinced about the importance of
ethnic market targeting might wish to take a look at the news coming out of
Hershey, Pa., in recent weeks. The nation’s largest candy maker has
signed a multi-year partnership with Latin singer/actress Thalia and has
revealed plans to unveil a line of Latin-inspired confections later this
year. And if that wasn’t news enough, Hershey announced that its
Mexico-based subsidiary has an agreement to purchase Grupo Lorena, a
leading Mexican candy maker with a U.S subsidiary.
We think that our “Today’s Consumer”
report contains lots of compelling facts and figures, and some of the most
informative were supplied by New York City-based Simmons Market Research
Bureau, a leading authority on the behavior of American consumers. If you
check out the data—presented in a series of tables on page
41—you can see which subsets of the population say they consume candy
the most frequently, as well as which group worries most about it, and much
more.
I’d like to extend a special note of thanks to
Simmons Market Research Bureau for enhancing our report by so generously
sharing data on various consumer segments and their attitudes about candy.
Low-Carb Revisited
Meanwhile, on to another hot
topic—low-carbohydrate eating. Does it seem to you that low-carb
diets are losing some of their luster? Some new numbers suggest the trend
has peaked.
It’s starting to appear that good, old-fashioned
calorie counting may be back in vogue. We noted in our last issue that
Russell Stover is testing products under the Calorie Smart banner, and
I’ve noticed Kraft’s 100-calorie packs of snacks and cookie
products turning up on retail shelves.
One of the good things about the 100-calorie packs is
the way that a portion-control message is implicit in their positioning. I
like the upbeat, feel-good-about-yourself message that television
commercials communicate as well. As in political campaigns, staying
positive is the way to go!
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