Food Product Design: Cover - July 2004 - Designing for Demographics

July 2004

Designing for Demographics

By Carla KuestenContributing Editor

Designing new products for targeted consumer segments is not for the faint of heart. It requires common sense, marketing savvy, knowledge, skill, art, science -- and an ability to predict the future. Companies often turn to a team of professionals to help them outwit the competition. That team may include psychometricians, modelers, ethnographers, qualitative and quantitative researchers with specialized areas of expertise, marketing managers, market researchers, and ingredient and flavor/fragrance suppliers.

But no matter how many professionals are involved, the consumer is still in charge, defining the rules of the game by who they are, what they want and how they want it. That's why understanding -- and designing for -- demographics is such an essential step in product development.

Marketing intelligence The Chicago-based American Marketing Association defines marketing as the function that "links the consumer, customer and public to the marketer through information -- information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance and improve understanding of marketing as a process." Market intelligence is the gathering, processing and interpreting of relevant information useful to management. Marketing intelligence information allows for sound decision-making and may include any or all of the following: change (for better or worse) in product acceptance, competitive activities including the introduction of new or improved products, a changing pattern of distribution, and an identification of gaps.

Joan Scheel, consultant for the Food Processing Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, said during her IFT presentation at the 2003 Annual Meeting in Chicago, entitled "Strategies for Successful Product Development: Using Marketing Intelligence," that marketing intelligence falls into four main classifications: environmental, industrial, customer and competitor. Demographics fall under the environmental class. Scheel says that data may be combined with observation and experimentation, and that one must always ask, "What should I be looking for?" Because the information gathered includes facts and opinions, it must be accurate, timely, usable, understandable and meaningful. Marketing success can be gauged by performance analyses of sales market share, distribution, profit and cost, the sales force, and return on investment.

Scheel and Linda Davis, the Food Processing Center's assistant director of technical services, work closely with food manufacturers as marketing consultants. Experts at market feasibility studies, Scheel and Davis help identify trends and market niches. Scheel remarked on how responsive the food industry has been to the low-carb movement for women, kids and ethnic groups. The challenge, Scheel says, is for food manufacturers to respond to trends before it's too late; key is anticipating trends and putting focus on a trend to get the product out to consumers. Those who wait may miss the market. Demographics change over time. The opportunity? Small market segments may grow. Scheel suggests targeting children by providing more healthy foods for them; the elderly by providing functional foods, nutraceuticals and easier-to-open packaging; and diabetics with low-carb solutions. She also suggests that we keep a watchful eye on food safety for our nation.

Demographics at work Understanding consumer need allows manufacturers to develop specific products for each target segment. Each segment may hold different desires for product offerings and packaging -- all successful new products deliver on these needs and trends.

The following covers some of the current highlights on product innovation and industry attention to satisfy those needs for different segments that have been identified, codified and catered to by the food industry. Among these are: aging-population segments, changing and diverse ethnic groups, women, kids, and Americans experiencing health-related problems.

Kid and teen power. According to the report "U.S. Market for Kids Foods and Beverages" (http://market research.com), children between the ages of five and 14 influence 78% of total grocery purchases. Their expected control of $10 billion in food and beverage spending this year gives them massive consumer power. A new study from the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Sodexho Research Institute found that children all over the world eat what they want to eat -- not what they are told to eat -- and enjoy food far more than their parents and grandparents ever did. Today, kids' taste preferences may make or break a brand, and these early preferences can last an entire lifetime.

Rick Pendrous, editor of Food Manufacture, believes that campaigns for healthier foods are gaining unstoppable momentum, especially in the emotionally charged area of children's health. Pendrous wonders if the new focus on "unhealthy" products poses opportunities as well as risks.

Many companies try to attract the attention of children through the use of effective packaging. But what are kid-appropriate packaging strategies? Technologies that appeal to kids, such as tube dispensers for dairy and peanut butter products, mesh utilitarian aspects of packaging with pure imagination and fun. These products are easy for small, weak hands to open and their colorful graphics are kid magnets. Relationship-building using cartoons works -- Elmo or Blue on a carton for the preschool crowd, for example -- resonate with children and leverage "pester power."

What appeals to the under-6 crowd will not necessarily fly for older children. Cara Newkirk, a senior business development associate at Flavors of North America (FONA), uses ethnographic research to identify the flavor and product preferences of "tweens" and teens.

Teenage consumers represent a tremendous potential market for food products because they have their own money to spend -- an estimated $100 billion each year. In addition, teens spend a sizable amount of family money on food shopping and exert considerable influence on the spending habits of others. Teens are also becoming the keepers of household information since they have more time to watch television, read newspapers and go online than their parents. Also adding to the lucrative potential of the teen market is the continued increase in the number of teens spending and buying.

The prevalence of obesity is growing. The obesity rate in children has doubled now to almost 16% of the total U.S. population. Poor eating habits and lack of exercise are to blame. Mary Overbeck of the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Rockville, MD, says that U.S. teens are more likely than those in other countries to consume fast food, snacks and sodas and also are more likely to be driven to school and other activities, contributing to a sedentary lifestyle.

Schools are under intense scrutiny to reverse the obesity trend and many are now partnering with food and beverage marketers to offer healthier options to children.

"Overweight children are at risk for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other serious health problems," says Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta. "They are a part of an epidemic of overweight and obesity that must be addressed so that they can lead healthier lives."

Attracting women. Because women do most of the food shopping, they are a key segment to reach and manufacturers use advertising and promotions to appeal to female buyers. But they have their own particular food preferences and nutrition needs.

The Understanding & Insight Group, Denville, NJ, uses a process called "Getting IT!" A study sponsored by McCormick & Company, Inc., Hunt Valley, MD, to understand the Nation's Food Cravings using this process found that men prefer to talk about craving steak, hamburgers, ribs, pizza, nuts, coffee and peanut butter. Women, on the other hand, prefer to talk about chocolate candy, cheesecake, french fries, tortilla chips and cinnamon rolls.

Women face unique health issues throughout their lives, including premenstrual syndrome, pregnancy, lactation, menopause, osteoporosis, cancer and heart disease. The women's health market was recognized as one of the most potentially lucrative markets in the dietary-supplement, functional-food, and over-the-counter (OTC) segments. Bioactives covering a wide range of female concerns are flying off the shelves today. Among the most popular are: black cohosh, for treating various menopausal symptoms; chasteberry, for healthy ovulation; soy isoflavonoids, for anticancer effects and bone-health benefits; St. John's wort, for mood enhancement and mental well-being; kava kava, as a sedative, muscle relaxant, diuretic and as a remedy for nervousness and insomnia; cranberry, for the prevention and treatment of urinary tract infections; probiotics, to improve GI health; grapefruit-seed extract, to control vaginal yeast infections; and Coenzyme Q10, which may help treat, or possibly even prevent, many disorders, including heart disease.

"New fortified products offer essential vitamins and minerals that Americans, and women in particular, are not getting enough of on a daily basis," says Dr. Audrey Cross, associate professor of Public Health at Columbia University. One example is Ocean Spray Cocktail PLUS which targets 40-plus women, offering vitamins, calcium, and other compounds especially needed by older women, 130% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of vitamin C and 10% of the RDA of vitamins A and E, and calcium, as well as more condense tannins, the cranberry compounds shown to help maintain a healthy urinary tract.

Baby boomers. As the largest single sustained growth of population in the history of the nation, the country's approximately 76 million baby boomers are still the most influential group in the food marketplace. A recent report from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), Washington, D.C., found that Americans between the ages of 38 and 56 account for 40% of total retail food sales. Though boomers tend to be loyal to their brands, they do pose a challenge to retailers because of their high standards for quality products, image and packaging. These consumers are becoming more adventuresome and trying flavorful, fresh, ethnic foods and exotic specialized products. The Boomer consumer is less likely to purchase food on health claim; they focus rather on freshness and good taste. Messages of low or no-fat may connote they don't taste good. Thus, positioning a product as such may not attracting these consumers.

Gray power. With the oldest baby boomers turning 58 in 2004, there will likely be new emphasis placed on developing and marketing special products for the health concerns of older adults. Some of these products may be easier to prepare or packed in more easily opened packages and some will be planned for the changes in nutrient needs that come with age. According to Chicago-based Mintel, the market for energy supplements has already experienced annual growth rates above 20% for the last five years. Older consumers (55+) are increasingly active, joining health clubs and taking adventure vacation packages. They respond to lifestyle/ attitude marketing as opposed to income target marketing. Mintel's exclusive consumer research showed that one-third of this age group would consider purchasing an energy or cereal bar.

Foods and beverages appeal depends highly on the chemical senses: taste, smell and flavor. Both olfaction and taste are impaired as we age, but age-associated loss is greater for odors than for tastes. Designing foods appealing to the elderly would find ways to compensate for loss of the ability to smell and appreciate the aroma of foods, including flavor tricks (using spices, such as cayenne pepper and paprika, to add pungency) and turbo-charging ingredients.

HealthSense, a multicenter shared-cost research project in sensory and consumer sciences based at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, was initiated in response to changing population demographics, which predict a significant increase in the older age group. HealthSense aims to accurately determine the effects of aging on the perceptual abilities of the sensory systems and ultimately how age-related change determines sensory preferences and food choice.

Through his studies on the "silver market," Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., president of Age Wave in San Francisco, finds that food companies are linking with pharmaceutical firms now to produce foods that seek to enhance health, i.e., nutraceuticals.

Culture: the next frontier Successful product design takes into account evolving tastes and environments, essentially anticipating the future. Akshay Rao, Ph.D., chairman, Department of Marketing & Logistics Management at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, believes that the next frontier is culture. "We all have a huge host of associations/ attributes/preferences in this and that culture," he says. "These different cultural aspects of the self can be 'primed' -- prime one or the other culturally different aspect of the self so that different parts of the self can be brought to surface. Each person is complex -- the same person has multiple selves. How we think, process information, and how receptive we are to certain communications can be impacted by priming." He indicates that price sensitivity can be primed; that willingness to pay is affected by impatience -- and the level of impatience differs depending on which of the selves is stimulated through priming.

Rao suggests that the best way to succeed is to identify segments and go after them. "Catch potential consumers early and hang on -- watch them closely. Demographics is just a starting point -- we need to think beyond demographics." This includes other variables that are often applied in combination with demographic segmentation:   geographic, psychographic, behaviorist, purchase occasion, benefits derived or desired, usage incidence, user rate, preference, and loyalty status.

"Hispanicness" Demographic studies suggest that more than 40% of all new consumers in the next decade will be Hispanic. The Latino market in the United States has a current purchasing power of $325 billion -- and tends to be very brand loyal. Companies are already courting this demographic segment, which is expected to become the second largest consumer group in the country by 2010.

Barb Cloutier, marketing associate for FONA, is part of a group who is responsible for maintaining fresh perspectives on flavor preferences and delivering good concepts. To stay close to macro-trends, they stay on top of hot categories and product launches. The group studies the big picture in Hispanic markets -- exploring not only language use, but also length of residency, food customs, interpersonal networks, ties to country of origin and media behavior. Cloutier says that cultural relevancy is the new buzzword. Two English-speaking women born in the United States in the same age and socioeconomic group may be very different based on their degree of acculturation. Someone brought up in a Hispanic community, who shops in Latino-style supermarkets and watches Telemundo, will have much different tastes than someone who has been more assimilated. A traditional (recent immigrant) woman prepares traditional dishes from scratch, and familiar brand names are important to her. For the new Latina (English-speaking, U.S. born), convenience is important, she eats out more often and she cooks a greater variety of foods.

Another example of strengthening ethnic relationships includes the introduction of a dulce de leche-flavored M&M by M&M/Mars, Hackettstown, NJ, inspired by the traditional Latino caramel sweet. Mars researchers swirled dulce de leche with chocolate, wrapped it in a candy shell, and created their newest flavor of M&M. According to Roberto Garcia, ethnic marketing manager for M&M/Mars, "Dulce de leche is a well-known flavor with a successful track record among all consumer groups, so although the new M&M variety was designed with Latino taste buds in mind, everyone is sure to love the rich and creamy combination."

Hispanic shoppers are usually attracted by fresh, high-quality perishables -- 75% believe that dishes made from fresh ingredients are more nutritious than packaged foods -- according to a presentation by Willard Bishop Consulting, Barrington, IL, at the 2003 Expo Comida Latina/The Hispanic Food & Beverage Show in Los Angeles.

Health consciousness A survey by Reuters Business Insight, London, identified health as a new market driver. Industry executives now view food categories as the most important in relation to well-being. The "Wellness Evolution" and "you-are-what-you-eat-or-drink" has taken hold and gained consumer interest. But there's a lot of complicated and conflicting information out there and consumers must sort it all out and make their own decisions. Wellness is a complex interaction of lifestyle (age, work, exercise, sleep, pressure and relationships), diet and nutrition, medications, and vitamins (mineral and herbal supplements).

Susie Johnson, business manager for market intelligence, Leatherhead Food International (LFI), Leatherhead, England, says the term "well-being" in foods is associated with a range of attributes -- feeling good, preventing illness, maintaining an active lifestyle and living longer. The new product-development challenge is to create tasty, exciting, healthful foods and beverages while avoiding the health problems that come with high fat, sugar and salt.

"Globesity." Obesity afflicts one in three Americans today; millions more qualify as overweight. But the obesity crisis isn't only an American problem. "Globesity," as termed by the World Health Organization (WHO), is rampant worldwide. More than 1 billion adults are overweight, with at least 300 million qualifying as obese. "The rest of the world may be catching up," says David Ludwig, an obesity researcher at Children's Hospital Boston. "But we're still in first place." These health conditions pose a major risk for chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and are caused by an increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in saturated fats and sugars combined with reduced physical activity. This market would be looking for concepts such as low-calorie, low-fat and reduced-carb.

Low carb. The low-carb craze -- embodied by diets such as Atkins, South Beach and the Zone -- is now the focus of consumer attention. Chicago-based Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) concludes that attitudes toward health influence behavior, but do not dictate it. Other factors, such as the demand for taste and variety, weigh in strongly. The foodservice industry -- including QSRs, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Hardee's and others -- are offering healthier options to satisfy consumer demand for low carb. Smart marketers are taking advantage of this diet trend. During the last two years, 800 new low-carb products have been introduced to the market.

Role of functional ingredients The challenge for Jane Zeien, R&D manager for Kerry Americas, Beloit, WI, is to deliver functional ingredients. New and exciting ingredients include proteins for higher-protein nutritional lipid powders to provide good mouthfeel and eating quality. Stepping up to the low-carb challenge, Zeien works closely with other development experts within Kerry, including developers from Kerry's Xtreme Initiative, a functional-bar development team. By working with a team of Kerry formulators with a breadth of expertise and troubleshooting, she avoids undesirable off-notes and ensures soft, creamy textures as opposed to hard, mouth-drying unpleasurable textures. Low-carb products require other noncarbohydrate/ high-protein or nonnutritive ingredients to provide balance, and the supply of these ingredients is tight, she says. Flour substitutes, such as soy flour, soy protein isolate, whey protein, vital wheat gluten, rice protein powder, guar gum, almond flour and oat flour, are in high demand.

One of the team's successes is a functional bar that offers protein balance from a flavor and texture standpoint. Zeien knows that more opportunities exist and that low-carb is not the whole answer. More research is needed on what carbs do what, what the role of fiber is and how these compounds affect the body's glycemic index.

Sherie Karow, sensory director for Kerry, works closely with ingredient and product developers. Often, when the formulation for a product is changed, such as reducing the carbohydrate content, the flavor system needs to be adjusted as well. To optimize flavor systems for clients, Karow's team applies experimental design -- varying components that make up the flavor systems systematically -- to match targets efficiently and cost effectively.

Diabetic market The escalating type 2 diabetes "epidemic" associated with obesity has ramifications for the food industry, says Fiona Angus, LFI business manager. She expects pressure to be put on the food industry to label the glycemic index -- the ranking of foods based on their immediate effect on blood glucose. Diakyur, the new diabetic relief product from Amrutanjan Ltd., Madras, India, is set to enter the U.S. market as a botanical food supplement.

Another product has promise in the fight to control diabetes. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study, Diachrome(TM) (chromium picolinate and biotin), from Nutrition 21, Purchase, NY, significantly improved cholesterol profiles in people with type 2 diabetes. Such improvements are of great importance to the 17 million people with diabetes in the United States for whom the leading cause of death is heart disease. Findings should be of importance to formulators and manufacturers in the $136 billion U.S. carbonated soft drink and juice markets who are concerned about the metabolic impact of sugar consumption and the interrelationship of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

University research Our nation's universities provide valuable discoveries for functional-food ingredients. "We look at the relationship between diet and health promotion or disease prevention," says Connie Weaver, head of the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. "Signature areas are calcium, vitamin D and bones, and botanicals such as green tea." Weaver is also studying whether soy isoflavones reduce bone loss in postmenopausal women.

Anna B. Marin, sensory and consumer science program director at the Food Innovation Center in Portland, OR, manages a consumer demographic and lifestyle information database to support research into different ethnic backgrounds, cultural practices and food-use habits for testing a range of food products in the Pacific Northwest. Marin aims to develop models to predict consumer food choices based on identifying and characterizing population segments with common lifestyle traits and food behaviors. An example of Marin's work includes a study aimed at describing the profile of U.S. consumers in terms of their demographics, fish-eating patterns, knowledge of omega-3 fatty acids and attitudes to albacore tuna.

Olga Padilla-Zakour, director of the New York State Food Venture Center, Geneva, NY, an extension program of Cornell University's Department of Food Science and Technology, provides outreach services for food entrepreneurship to encourage and support food businesses in the rural Northeast. She says that New York apples can be used to develop premium hard cider for niche markets that can benefit from the established wine trails, and maple cream could become a preferred export product to Europe and the Far East, both niche markets that can be targeted through use of demographics.

Soy goes mainstream Marketers need to pay attention to a new trend: niche products moving into the American mainstream. These products need to be segmented so that both newcomers to the product and traditional users can be clearly defined. Soymilk is a case in point. Once catered solely to the organic consumer, soymilk is becoming mainstream with 8th Continent, a joint venture between DuPont's Protein Technologies International (PTI), St. Louis, and General Mills, Minneapolis. Products from 8th Continent are challenging the category leader, Silk, manufactured by White Wave, Boulder, CO.

Soy's benefits for cardiovascular health have been established and it has potential for helping prevent other diseases, such as osteoporosis, prostrate and colon cancer. Consumers now demand a broader array of foods containing this ingredient. Efforts to deliver acceptable soy products begin at the farm. Gary Pepper, who worked as a cooperative extension specialist for soybean production in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, helped provide education to soybean growers so that they could deliver for niche markets. Niche market soybeans have specific characteristics (physical or chemical) that are required by the food industry to meet a certain need, such as ingredients for soy-based infant formulas, meat alternatives, nondairy soy frozen desserts, soy beverages, soynut butter, soy cheese, soy yogurt and soy-based whipped toppings.

Cohen Marketing Services   (CMS), Butler, MD, works from the field to the market and endeavors to bring options and value-added solutions to farmers that also provide attractive product possibilities for food manufacturers. London-based BTG, a global technology commercialization company, and CMS recently announced an agreement allowing BTG to commercialize a technology that enables higher soy content (desirable consistency and texture) in several food-product categories, including baked goods, snack foods (chips and cookies) and other dough-based specialty foods.

Preference segments Sensory responses to the taste, smell and texture of foods help determine food preferences and eating habits. But sensory responses alone do not predict food consumption. There are multiple links between taste perceptions, taste preferences, food preferences, food choices and the amount of food consumed. A range of genetic, physiological and metabolic variables influence taste responses. The impact of taste factors on food intake further depends on sex and age and is modulated by obesity, eating disorders and other pathologies of eating behavior. Furthermore, food preferences and food choices of populations depend on attitudinal, social and economic variables. According to Adam Drewnowski, Ph.D., of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, "Nutrition education and intervention strategies aimed at improving population diets ought to consider sensory pleasure response to foods, in addition to a wide range of demographic and sociocultural variables."

What the customer orders Daniel Ennis, Ph.D., president of the Institute for Perception, Richmond, VA, offers researchers and marketers Landscape Segmentation Analysis (LSA) -- a model of consumer preferences using a probabilistic, individual ideal-point model for product portfolio analysis.   The model considers competing and existing brands to optimally place new products on the market to maximize first choice. Ideal-point models help identify the product's ideal sensory characteristics (sweetness, spiciness, color, texture, etc) for any consumer segment. Multiple consumer segments may be considered making the LSA model a valuable strategic tool for portfolio optimization.

David MacKay, Ph.D., marketing professor at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, works with proScaL -- a powerful, flexible analytical tool for representing and understanding how consumers perceive, prefer and choose products. The tool estimates perceptual shares for existing and experimental products and permits "what-if" modeling to evaluate different product-development strategies and help analysts better understand the structure of a market. Segments based on consumers' ideal points can be associated to meaningful background characteristics (demographic, socioeconomic, and psychographic variables).

Research conducted by Moskowitz Jacobs Inc., White Plains, NY, and The Understanding & Insight Group, Denville, NJ, furthers understanding of what drives consumer segment preferences and cravings. Their research study explored the food-consumption experience for more than 20 categories, including beverages, to determine what makes a product "craveable." For example, the company found that yogurt, a food already considered to be healthy, can benefit from health messaging and promotion. A market exists for yogurts containing added health benefits. Its Healthy You!2002, an online conjoint study of yogurt consumers, categorized the consumers into four segments, based on the pattern of their utility values. Health Seekers (33%) want healthy yogurts, but are not willing to sacrifice taste, the Product Lovers (24%) eat yogurt because of the health benefits, Anti Healthy Devotees (36%) are driven by the total taste, textural and situational experience of consuming yogurt, whereas Flavor Cravers (7%) are loyal to their brand, and influenced by endorsements from health agencies.

Game-plan strategies New York-based ACNielsen's Homescan Panel Views surveys help answer the why behind the buy, offering the unique ability to integrate actual purchase information with attitudes and user information collected from consumer panels. This proven method of identifying consumer target groups and understanding how attitudes affect behavior helps decide the best demographic match for your product.

Joe Wilke, president, and Nick Sorvillo, senior vice president, Homescan, help customers identify early adopters -- tracking early adopters helps optimize new product launches. Knowing globalization changes the way companies conduct business, Jim Miller, senior vice president, an expert at multicountry research, describes different techniques to best predict future purchase behaviors in multicountry testing where cultural differences impact consumer claims and behavior.

Chicago-based Peryam & Kroll has a long-standing interest in research with children and has developed research methods particularly suited to that age group. The mature market is another area of focus for the company, since aging boomers represent one of the fastest-growing population segments in the United States. As people age, physiological and cognitive changes affect their sensory perception, preference and consumption of food. Richard Popper, vice president of research and development at the company, advises that aging boomers represent a much more diverse market than seniors in prior decades due to changes in the ethnic makeup of the U.S. population and the variety of lifestyles.

Product affinity analysis classifies consumers based on what they buy, how often they buy it, and when says Arthur M. Huges, vice president for strategic planning at M\S Database Marketing, Los Angeles. Consumer databases are created to profile consumers. How significant is demographic information? Maybe not significant at all, says Huges. Tests should be conducted to confirm if any correlation exists between profitability, response and demographics.

Claritas, Inc., a major source of demographic information for marketing based in San Diego, goes beyond demographics by grouping demographic data into clusters -- groups of people with similar lifestyles. Everyone in the United States (and Canada) is fitted into 62 different Prizm® clusters. Each cluster provides information on how people live and what they buy, their preferred media, housing, education, age and family composition. For example, cluster 13, "Gray Power," consists of affluent retirees in Sunbelt cities. Found in retirement communities across the United States, these affluent retirees are playing golf, monitoring their health and tending their hefty investment portfolios. Cluster coding may be very useful or a waste of time; the only way to find out is to test it. For the right product situation it can be profitable.

It's a large world The views held by the many people of the world must be considered for global brands. Strong brand image is generally coveted, but it may boomerang depending on the sentiments sweeping the globe. Purchase, NY-based PepsiCo Inc. and The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, learned this firsthand after a nonviolent protest of U.S.-based colas and the creation of Mecca-Cola, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which gained fans among Muslims and others sympathetic to their cause. The niche market of Middle Easterners, upset at American actions, is responding favorably to Mecca-Cola as an alternative to U.S. colas (the ultimate American consumable). This proves that even strong brand image may be affected by political climate.

The world's markets are poised for change as population demographics change. Aging, acculturation and health issues and concerns are driving forces behind change. It's not easy to be involved in new product development. Designing new products for demographics (and beyond) is probably best accomplished by a team approach (demographers, researchers, marketers and consumers) -- with each contributing his or her own unique perspective and expertise. Patience is a redeemable virtue. Next year, that rather smallish niche market may be primed for mainstream success.

Carla Kuesten is a sensory and consumer research scientist with a Ph.D. in Food Science and Psychometrics from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. She presently works at TIAX LLC, a product-development consulting group located in Cambridge, MA. She can be reached at [email protected].

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