Dedication

This book is dedicated to Bob Stevens of Procter & Gamble (P&G), the man who set me on the path of “active retailing” and who is also widely viewed as a pioneer in the field of shopper research.

He was a man of many talents: A consummate researcher, he was also an avid sports fan. Indeed, at 15, he began a short career as a professional wrestler, assuming the name “Rocky Stevens.” Later in life, his love of basketball took him to Israel, Italy, and Alaska to cheer on his teams.

Bob was a devout Christian, a loving husband, father, and grandfather, and a philanthropist, too. He raised money for education and, post-retirement, taught and lectured often on market research and management, donating his honoraria to charity. For a time, he served on the board of Hope Cottage, a temporary shelter for abused, abandoned, or neglected children.

The greatest portion of his life, however, was spent at P&G where, beginning in 1951, he spent nearly 40 years as a consumer research manager. Bob was known as an inveterate people-watcher, fascinated by consumers’ behavior both in-store and out, and especially their interaction with products.

His retirement did not put a stop to his professional involvement. He continued to write about marketing and research in a periodic newsletter called “Views from the Hills of Kentucky,” which he emailed or faxed gratis to subscribers.

So, what made this man special? He was an advocate for the shopper, for understanding their needs and for doing the right thing as a researcher—often acting as a role model for his peers. He was always curious about what people did as opposed to what they said. And in many ways, his work has stood the test of time, as brands began to focus more on ethnography.

Bob would always dig a little deeper when it came to research. Bob Goodpaster, who is currently Vice President of Global Insights for The Hershey Company, recalls that when he worked with him at P&G, Bob would focus on research at one or two stores, giving people coupons to go in and buy products, while collecting their names and phone numbers for follow-up research.

What he was trying to do was to predict potential repeat purchasing, but working it out over a weekend—without having to wait months and months to read the normal statistical print-outs. He was way ahead of his time.

It couldn’t have been easy because, as with any pioneer, there were those who were enthusiastic about change and those who were afraid of it. But Bob persevered, and rarely turned down the chance to innovate. For P&G, this resulted in insights that the company might never have achieved otherwise. Indeed, P&G is one of the most innovative research organizations around today—and Bob played a part in laying the foundations of continuing innovation.

He was an expert in understanding the relation between P&G products on the shelf and the shoppers walking by. He followed those shoppers home with their products to see how they actually used them. Harking back to the early days of his career, he pioneered the use of hall tests in the 1950s, seeing it as yet another way to get closer to consumers.

Bob’s philosophy lies at the heart of this book, too. His enthusiasm for researching shoppers—for knowing what goes on when they enter a store—is translated in these pages into a modus operandi for retailers (and brand owners) who want to make the most of their businesses.

Earlier, I mentioned his newsletters, which inspired new ways of thinking and working. I include samples from two of his favorite topics in the Appendix, distinguishing between “testers” and “users” and the need for “assessment in context,” and the full set is available online. Bob’s views on these issues matched my own major concerns as a scientist transplanted to market research. We believe that customers should be studied in their native environment: This means researching supermarket shoppers in supermarkets; food service patrons in restaurants, schools, and other commercial and non-commercial locations; food service operators in their kitchens; schoolchildren in their schools; and so on. Also, we prefer direct observation of “users,” and asking questions, converting them into “testers” as follow-ups, rather than as the foundation of the research.

Our learnings about the messy process of testing in context were inspired by Bob, and became integral to my business following discussions with him. It was Bob who turned my narrow focus from the shoppers and the products to the stores, their natural habitat. I hope that, from whatever lofty peak he’s now operating, he feels that I’m still taking his work forward in the ongoing search for truth about shoppers.