WHO BUYS CANNED SAIMON, AND WHY? 



INTRODUCTION 



In aarket research It is important to 

 know how many people do what. It is even 

 more important to know why . 



The methodology of supplying answers 

 to how-many-people- do -^rtiat is well estab- 

 lished. The first part of this report is 

 concerned with the interpretation of the 

 results of household consumers' responses 

 to questions on what buying habits, serv- 

 ing habits, etc., they have. In effect, 

 this interpretation amounts to deciding 

 bow many household consimiers prefer par- 

 ticular attributes of canned salmon in 

 relation to other groups with different 

 preferences. The selection of a random 

 sample representative of all the house- 

 holders in the soreas surveyed was deter- 

 mined by statisticELl methods in consnon use. 

 Also included in the first section of the 

 report is the analysis of consumer re- 

 sponses to the use of two related motiva- 

 tional research techniques- -the open ques- 

 tion and the probe. Itese techniques 

 represent an initial step in the process 

 of learning the why of consumer marketing 

 behavior. 



While the study of marketing behavior 

 over several decades has developed a number 

 of methods of investigating the vby of con- 

 sumer habits, motivational research is 

 relatively new. Practitioners in the field 

 of motivationaLL research sometimes disagree 

 as to the emphasis to be placed upon the 

 special techniques drawn tram any one of 

 the social sciences such as statistics, 

 psychology, economics, and sociology. The 

 principal techniques of motivational re- 

 search in the field of consumer marketing 

 behavior, however, are derived frcan 

 psychology. 



The second part of this report is 

 concerned with the results of the motiva- 

 tional analysis of the marketing behavior 

 of consumers of canned salmon based on 

 other reseeurch techniques. Motivational 

 Hiarket surveys require the services of a 

 staff trained to interrogate consumers 

 with special probing techniques, and a 

 highly skilled reseeurch staff is needed 

 to interpret the results of the recorded 

 responses. Moreover, motivational re- 

 search studies are much more expensive 

 than consuBier surveys using conventioneil 

 statistical methods. IMs situation has 

 a direct bearing upon the size of the 

 motivational research survey irtiich can 

 be made for a fixed sum available for 

 consumer resesurch. As a ccmpromise be- 

 tween the maxltmnn population coverage to 

 find out how many people do what with 

 canned fish and the limitation Imposed by 

 the cost of motivational research into ^y 

 they used it, three urban meirkets were 

 selected for study instead of a national 

 survey. 



The populations under study consisted 

 of households within the urbanized areas of 

 Boston, Massachusetts J Detroit, Michigan; 

 and Birmingham, Alabama. In addition, Negro 

 households located in the rural areas of 

 Orangeburg County, South Carolina were sur- 

 veyed. Negro households in rural areas of 

 the southern states represent an important 

 market for canned sardines. The Orangeburg 

 County results will be summarized in the 

 saI^ii^e report which will show the cross- 

 classification of various marketing data by 

 race for Birmingham and Detroit. A western 

 city was not included in the survey because 

 of a lack of funds to cover the cost of 

 interviews. Area probability samples were 

 selected to represent the populations 

 covered and interviews were completed with 

 the homemaker or person mainly responsible 

 for planning the meals as follows : 



