Learn how people use your category, and why
A usage and attitude study is a broad survey of one category: who uses it, how often, where they buy, which brands they choose, and what they believe about them. It gives your team one shared set of facts to plan products, messages and targets from.
Chapter 01 · The problem
Plans built on different pictures of the buyer
Teams often work from different ideas of who the customer is. One plans for the heaviest users, another for newcomers, and a third for last year's buyer. A usage and attitude study replaces those pictures with one set of facts from a clearly defined sample. It shows what people do next to what they think, so you can see where habits and beliefs line up and where they do not.
Chapter 02 · How it works
How the study is built
Define the category and the people
We agree where the category starts and ends, and who counts as a user. The screener and quotas are set for the study, for example by age, gender and region.
Write the questionnaire
Usage, buying, brand and attitude questions, many drawn from our library of ready-made questions on usage and habits, brands and pricing, then edited to fit your category.
Field it on the panel
The survey runs on our PocketsFull panel, with attention checks on every response and checks that open answers stay on topic.
Add the reasons
Open questions, and optional video answers with AI follow-ups, explain the patterns behind the numbers. Interviews or group discussions can be added for more depth.
Compare user groups
Heavy, medium and light users are grouped automatically. Compare them, or loyal and switching buyers, side by side, with markers on significant differences.
Fig. 2.1Who qualifies
How do you usually make coffee at home?
- Pods or capsulesQualifies
- Ground or whole beansQualifies
- InstantQualifies
- I don't make coffee at homeScreened out
Quotas
- Age 18–34 · 35–54 · 55+
- Gender
- Northeast · Midwest · South · West
Fig. 2.2The questionnaire
- How do you usually make coffee at home?Single choice
- How many cups do you drink on a typical day?Number
- Where do you buy your pods or beans?Multiple choice
- Which brands have you bought in the past month?Multiple choice
- Good coffee at home is worth paying more forAgree scale
- What annoys you about making coffee at home?Video answer
- From the template library: usage and habits, brands, pricing
Fig. 2.3In the field
Quotas filled so far
- Age 18–3492%
- Age 35–5488%
- Age 55+81%
- Northeast Full100%
- South86%
- Attention check on every response
- Open answers checked for topic
Fig. 2.4The reasons
What annoys you about making coffee at home?
Transcript · Pod user, 34Honestly, it's the pods. I go through so many and I can't recycle them where I live.
AI follow-upWhat would make you switch to something else?
Pod user, 34If beans were as quick, I'd switch tomorrow.
- Transcribed
- Relevance 0.94
- Attention 0.90
- 1 AI follow-up
Themes from open and video answersShareSentiment
- Waste from pods34%
- Cleaning the machine22%
- Cost per cup19%
PositiveNeutralNegative
Fig. 2.5Groups side by side
| Measure | Heavy (3+ a day) | Medium (2) | Light (1 or less) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use pods | 58% | 47% | 39% |
| Buy whole beans | 31% | 36% | 22% |
| Grind at home | 24% | 29% | 15% |
| Say good coffee is worth paying more for | 71% ▲ | 55% | 42% |
Groups made automatically from cups a day. The marker shows a significant difference.
Chapter 03 · What we measure
What a usage and attitude study covers
- 3.1
Who uses the category
The share of people who use it at all, and who they are.
- 3.2
How often and when
Frequency and occasions: time of day, place, and who they are with.
- 3.3
How they buy
Where people buy, how much at a time, and what they say they spend.
- 3.4
Brands
Brands known, brands bought recently, and the brand bought most often.
- 3.5
Reasons for choice
What matters when choosing, and why people switch.
- 3.6
Attitudes
How much people agree with statements about the category and its brands.
- 3.7
Unmet needs
What people wish were different, in their own words.
Chapter 04 · The example
Example: coffee at home, pods or beans
A US coffee brand is planning a range for home brewing.
It surveys US adults who make coffee at home, with quotas on age, gender and region. The questions cover how they brew, how many cups they drink a day, where they buy beans or pods, which brands they use, and what annoys them about coffee at home. The report compares pod users with bean buyers, and heavy drinkers with light ones, and shows which needs each group mentions most.
“I want the first cup in under a minute. That's the whole reason I'm on pods.”
“Fresh beans are the point. I'd rather grind than open another pod.”
Pod usersBean buyers
- 64%Quick in the morning ▲29%
- 31%Tastes fresh ▲68%
- 19%Strength I can control ▲52%
- 22%Less packaging waste ▲47%
- 45%Easy to clean up ▲18%
- 38%Lower cost per cup41%
Share who mention each need, by group. The marker shows a significant difference between the groups.
Chapter 05 · What you get
What you get
- 5.1
A category fact base
Who uses the category, how often, when and where, with a chart for every question.
- 5.2
The brand picture
Which brands people know, buy and use most, and how each is rated on the points that matter in the category.
- 5.3
Attitudes and needs
How strongly people agree with statements about the category, plus open answers grouped into themes and shown as a word cloud.
- 5.4
User groups side by side
Up to five groups compared in every chart, with crosstabs and weighting to match the sample to your plan.
- 5.5
Questions answered on demand
Ask the study a question in plain English and get the answer with the numbers and a chart behind it.
- 5.6
Files
A PowerPoint deck, an Excel workbook and the raw data as CSV.
Built on CatalyseAI
What runs underneath the story
Ready-made questions
Usage, brand, pricing and attitude questions from a library of 309 templates, edited to fit your category, across 20 question types.
Groups side by side
Compare up to five audience groups in every chart, with markers where a difference is significant, plus crosstabs and weighting.
Themes, with the quotes behind them
Open and video answers are grouped into themes, each with a sentiment bar and the quotes that support it. Ask the study reads the transcripts and answers your questions in plain English.
Chapter 06 · Questions
Questions, answered
How is a usage and attitude study different from segmentation?
A usage and attitude study describes the market and compares groups you can already name, such as heavy and light users. Segmentation goes further and finds new groups from people's needs and attitudes. A usage and attitude survey is often the first step, and its data can feed a later segmentation.
Can we include our competitors?
Yes. Brand questions list the brands in your category, and every brand is asked about in the same way, so yours can be compared with the rest.
Can we repeat the study later?
Yes. Keeping the same questions and the same definition of who qualifies lets you set a later round next to the first and see how habits have changed.
Related
Goes well with
Get one clear picture of your category
Tell us the category and the decisions the study should inform. We will outline the questionnaire and the sample.
Nearest office: Orlando, FL (corporate office)