Mind Mapping

Challenge and Selection

The purpose of selecting the mind mapping technique was to understand how people choose  which energy drink to buy. How to motivate them to buy a particular brand's energy drink.  Importance of brand while purchasing such products. Mind mapping as a tool helped me in  understanding the motivation behind buying an energy drink and visually organizing  information. Such products are pretty common among people who are health freaks. What  factors will play a key role in motivating other people to consume this product and what are  the preconceived notions of consuming such products could be directly connected to the  central concept with the help of a mind map.

Application

I start the process by going to stores that keep energy drinks. Observing people who are  buying or are standing near the aisle having these products. Every hour I change the  environment a little to understand the importance of in-store factors that could affect the  buying behavior. Sometimes going and talking to people acting like another buyer,  visualizing the consumer's reaction to the discount ads kept near the products, or asking  consumers whether they would choose products that were with attractive packaging but  expensive or a product that was simply packed and cheaper. These situations helped me in  categorizing the customers as brand loyalists, value buyers, etc, and understand their  respective buying behavior. Also going to places like the gym, parks, etc helped me to  understand how these places influenced and distinguished the purchasing patterns of the  consumers.

After this, I called and interviewed people who represented each buyer category to get more  insights from them.

This step also becomes important to identify common attributes among the groups. Also, in  the process I researched with the shop owners and their behavior towards storing out products  over the competitors.

Insight and approach

The insight which I could gather during the process was that people who are health conscious  go for products based on the nutritional info and at times they are the ones, who motivate  people from the group to try these products. Value buyers go for products that are cheap and  do not pay much importance to package or nutritional value, they do pay a tad bit importance  to taste, if on consuming they don’t like the taste, they may switch to the next best alternative,  brand loyalists are people who buy the same brand every time or have the experience of using  any product of that brand. The thing I would change in my current approach would be to talk  more to the customers. Here is focused more on observing them.

