The Battle of the Snack and Confectionery Giants: Understanding Consumer Choices.
Snack bar brands worry about confectionery products encroaching on their turf, and vice versa. But here's the kicker: consumers don’t really see the difference.
Whether they pick a Kit-Kat or a Nature Valley bar often comes down to a spur-of-the-moment preference, not a calculated decision. Our data might classify these choices differently, but for consumers, it’s all about what they feel like at the moment.
The lines between the confectionery and snack markets have been blurring for a while now, and this trend is speeding up. Breakfast, lunch, and even dinner are blending into snack times, creating a fluid landscape where an ice cream, coffee, fruit, or snack bar could be swapped for a full meal. Consumers' choices are more spontaneous than we often give them credit for.
Enter Daniel Kahneman’s concept of System 1 thinking: quick, automatic, and low-effort. These "impulse" buys are really about the consumer’s id, or as Professor Steve Peters might call it, their "Chimp"—that inner voice demanding immediate satisfaction.
Understanding what drives this inner Chimp helps us make sense of these seemingly random decisions. By focusing on the various occasions and the psychological and practical drivers behind them, we can see why a consumer's Chimp might crave one snack now and something entirely different later.
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Armed with this insight, we can make sense of consumer choices, leading to clearer paths for effective communication and product development. When we stop obsessing over what consumers are eating and start digging into why they choose what they do, we gain a much clearer understanding of our market and our brands. This approach allows us to make smarter decisions for the future, ensuring our brands stay relevant and appealing.
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Chris Lukehurst is a Consumer Psychologist and a Director at The Marketing Clinic:
Providing Clarity on the Psychological relationships between consumers and brands
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