databasics; You Are What You Eat - Sodexho Marriott market research program

American Demographics, Oct, 2000

Sodexho Marriott cooks up changes in campus dining with an inventive segmentation program.

Huntington College is a small, liberal-arts school, located in Huntington, Indiana, not far from the Dan Quayle museum. Affiliated with the Church of the United Brethren of Christ, the student body tends to have a traditional, conservative streak - until it comes to dining. That's what Sodexho Marriott, the campus food service provider, discovered when it tried out a new marketing program to uncover the dining preferences of Huntington students. Now, instead of serving pita pockets or turkey sandwiches at lunch, the students are treated to roast beef with carmelized onions on a baguette or shrimp jambalaya with jalapeno cornbread.

How did Sodexho Marriott discover that many Huntington students were craving adventurous new meals, rather than just the old college favorites? Through an ambitious new segmentation program called LifeSTYLING, Sodexho uncovered groups of students at Huntington whose lifestyles and backgrounds strongly suggested that they would enjoy more innovative dining options. By better addressing the tastes and demographics of the students it serves, Sodexho hopes to significantly boost sales.

LifeSTYLING is a proprietary tool which allows Sodexho to use the zip codes of each student on a campus to segment the student body into six different groups: Trend Setters, Star Gazers, Fun Express, Time Liners, Metro Fusion, and Main Streamers. Each group has its own set of lifestyle characteristics which determine the type of menu items they like, brands they prefer, hours they want to eat, and collateral marketing tools (such as promotional displays) which would be effective in reaching them.

"I would have expected more than just six cluster groups, but these six provided the clearest differentiation," says Meridith Heckmann, senior director of market research, who spearheaded the creation of LifeSTYLING at Sodexho's higher education division. "We have yet to find a school where we have misrepresented the composition of the student body using this system."

The two main variables among the six groups are the types of cuisine they enjoy, from traditional to innovative, and the amount of money they are able or willing to spend on meals, from price-sensitive to price-insensitive (see chart 2). For example, Trend Setters want innovative meals and don't mind paying more for them, while Main Streamers are seeking traditional meals and value. In addition to these two overriding variables, a host of specific food and brand preferences provide a solid foundation to develop menus and marketing direction on each campus.

So far, Sodexho has analyzed 35 campuses with LifeSTYLING and has found that five main patterns in the mix of segments predominate. For example, at Oklahoma City University, Star Gazers account for 30 percent of the student population, Trend Setters, another 30 percent, followed by Fun Express (20 percent), Main Streamers (9 percent), Timer Liners (6 percent), and Metro Fusion (5 percent). The main pattern here is Star Gazer, Trend Setter, and Fun Express. Using the data from these three LifeSTYLING segments, a Sodexho menu team came up with a distinct menu template to match this pattern. The menus created for each of the five patterns are named Contemporary, Global, Moderate Mix, Spectrum, and Classic, and they reflect commonalities among the segments within each pattern. While there are some basics that are `must-haves' among all patterns, such as chicken noodle soup, these templates unveil subtleties such as whether cheddar or gorgonzola cheese on the burgers will appeal to more students at a particular school.

Sodexho has additionally used LifeSTYLING to analyze the retail food court needs of five large public universities this past summer, and is testing 27 more this fall. The results of this analysis will be used to retool the mix of national brands offered in the food courts, such as Burger King or Taco Bell, Jamba Juice, or Starbucks.

Satisfying student palates is not only important to Sodexho, but also to college administrators who sign the food service contracts. Creating an attractive dining service operation is a key goal of administrators, as it keeps students on-campus and contributes to the overall college experience. "Eating is not just about food, it's a social experience for the students," says Gene Kellogg, vice president for consulting and business development at Sodexho.

The results of some LifeSTYLING analysis has served as a wake-up call to some Sodexho district managers, such as Glenn Kvidahl at Indiana State University. After running the zip codes of the student body, Kvidahl found that while a large percentage of students fell into gastronomically conservative groups, a surprising 24 percent were Trend Setters. "When we looked at what we were offering in the food court, it was all geared towards the Main Streamers and Time Liners - Burger King, Taco Bell, Subway," he says. "Now we are looking into adding a brand like Starbucks which will appeal to the Trend Setter." Sodexho is even considering opening a kiosk to sell sunglasses in the retail food court to gain a greater share of the Trend Setters' disposable dollars.