Convenience is a key driver for these old-school shoppers

Drug Store News, June 21, 2004 by Michael Johnsen

Hall-of-Fame San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana is a high-blood-pressure pitchman for Novartis, and basketball legend Magic Johnson serves up GlaxoSmithKline's Combivir as his HIV treatment of choice.

But Nascar still seems to resonate the most with Rugged Traditionalists, especially being as Nascar owes its roots to the "good ol' boys" of the South, a veritable bedrock for Rugged Traditionalists.

And according to a Nascar brand study, if given a choice between two products, 72 percent of Nascar fans would select a sponsor's product over a non-sponsor's product--a level of loyalty that at least matches that of a Rugged Traditionalist.

The one place you probably won't reach a Rugged Traditionalist is online. This consumer group is more likely to jump in the truck and shoot out to the convenience store, the drug store or the grocery store to pick up an item than to shop on the Internet.

And though their budget constraints would lead one to believe that value is the key driver in any purchase decision, judging from the shopping centers they visit, they seem to place greater importance on convenience. And that would mean that they fit the bill for the prototypical male consumer: They walk into a store not to shop, but to buy. They find and choose their product and then head for the checkstand.

That being the case, in-store signage at the shelf may be the best way to reach a Rugged Traditionalist to sway them possibly into making an unplanned purchase. Perhaps a clip-strip of single use samples of Tylenol 8 Hour strategically located in typical Rugged Traditionalist destination centers--chips and beer, for instance, or in the men's toiletry section.

Because they're active around the house and outdoors, other cross-promotional opportunities could exist between home and garden departments and topical analgesics, first-aid items or anti-itch products.

The LifeMatrix Segments

Rugged Traditionalists    6%
Free Birds                6%
Settled Elders           12%
Tribe Wired               9%
Fun/Atics                10%
Struggling Singles       12%
Priority Parents         14%
Home Soldiers            11%
Renaissance Women         9%
Dynamic Duos             11%

Source: NOP World

Note: Table made from pie chart.

7-Eleven offers pit-stop appeal for the grab-and-go shopper

If Rugged Traditionalists are driven by convenience, then their shopping center of choice has to be 7-Eleven, with more than 2,500 products and services, many of them consumable items, packed into a selling space ranging from 2,400 square feet to 3,000 square feet.

7-Eleven banks so much on its ability to turn customers quickly and efficiently that many 7-Eleven parking lots have signs alerting consumers that they have 15 minutes to shop.

And that is music to Rugged Traditionalists' ears--make a quick pit stop at the local c-store, grab a pack of smokes and the beverage of choice, and it's on the road again.

What helps drive that convenience is the number of stores that can be clustered in any one area because a c-store only needs a small plot of land. Indeed, as of December 2003, there were more than 130,000 c-stores across the nation, and that store base continues to grow at a 10 percent clip. And 7-Eleven is leading the way. Operating in what is almost a $300 billion channel, 7-Eleven's store base across the United States and Canada totals more than 5,800 locations.