Following Chinese shoppers to the avocado shelf
The brief
An international food, wine and lifestyle marketing agency was working on avocados from Mexico. It wanted to understand Chinese shoppers’ lifestyles and diets, how they choose imported fruit, what avocados from Mexico mean to them, and how to present the fruit and teach people how to eat and store it.
Why it was hard
Avocado was still unfamiliar to many Chinese shoppers. People were unsure how to tell when one is ripe or how to use it in their own cooking. And when choosing fruit, what people say they look for and what they actually do in the aisle are often different.
How we did it
A week before fieldwork, respondents completed diary exercises about their lifestyles, their interests and their dealings with imported fruit, which gave us a rich picture of each person before we met them.
Then we went shopping with them. On accompanied store visits, the client’s team watched up close as respondents chose fruit: what they picked up, pressed, compared and put back, with our team interpreting quietly alongside. Finally, in-home interviews explored their eating habits in their own kitchens and their views on avocados from Mexico.
What the client got
A clear picture of Chinese shoppers’ diets, what drives their choice of imported fruit, and how they see avocados and Mexican produce, with practical ideas for presenting the fruit and teaching people to use it.
What it shows
Watching real shopping trips reveals the decisions people do not mention in an interview, and we can put a client right there to see them.
Services: ethnography and accompanied shopping · online research
