Weak Signals and Mind-Sets of Consumers: The Case of Milk

We present results from one of a set of studies run in the early 2000’s, which looked at weak signals in terms of what consumers wanted. That study, on milk, revealed four distinct mind-sets, groups of respondents who thought alike. These are: S1 Traditional + Health, S2 Traditional + Healthful Ingredients, S3 Traditional + Indulgent, S4 Listens to Authority, respectively. At that time the focus on foods as the source of health and wellness was just beginning. We show how to discover hitherto new, unexpected mind-sets of respondents, using experimental design of messaging, coupled with deconstruction of these messages by regression, and followed by clustering. We suggest that this approach to messaging consumers using experimental design provides a powerful method to uncover emerging mind-sets in the consumer population.