Helping clients understand and influence consumer buying behavior is one primary focus of today’s market researchers. Occasion-based marketing uniquely accomplishes this goal by finding specific occasions tied to the consumer’s habits and needs. Clients can then create products to address the needs of specific occasions. In one example, Kraft was able to develop new products that would better meet specific consumer occasions in retail stores (Hartman Group and Kraft Foods 2010). One significant obstacle to overcome in the data collection process for occasion-based marketing involves the respondent’s natural memory processes in accurately reporting his or her own retrospective behavior at different occasions (Stone 2000). Although there are many approaches to this obstacle including personal interviews, behavioral observation, and field trials, cost restraints and feasibility call for a more effective self-reporting methodology to fuel occasion-based marketing (McDonald 2008).
Luckily, new data collection techniques allow us to overcome this obstacle by collecting data in the moment of each occasion. Mobile devices have geolocating apps with around-the-clock instant internet access to submit survey data, thus allowing us to capture consumer actions, thoughts and motivations as they are happening (Bhaskaran 2011). This capability matches the exact need occasion-based marketing has: overcoming potentially faulty memories. For innovators, combing in-the-moment mobile data collection with occasion-based sampling could provide more realistic and detailed data on consumer behaviors and motivations, leading to better products and marketing.