Understanding Brand Competition Using Micro and Macro Scanner Data

Recent advances in data gathering through checkout scanners have pro­duced vast amounts of data on the actual behavior of consumers in the mar­ketplace, creating new opportunities for managers and researchers to under­ stand competition and consumers' response to the marketing mix. Previous analyses of this data in the literature have focused either at the household (micro) or store (macro) level. The authors propose a method of enriching the analysis of competitive behavior by combining the in-depth consumer in­ formation obtained from a micro-level household scanner panel with the com­prehensive market data supplied by a macro-level retail-tracking panel. The approach offers the manager detailed information about consumers (e.g., identification of consumer segments in terms of brand preferences and socio­economic characteristics) along with strategic diagnostics of the product­ market (e.g., the sensitivity of the market to price promotions, impact of a brand's strategy on competitors, vulnerability of the brand to competitive actions)