Occasion – definition
- a favorable opportunity or circumstance
- a state of affairs that provides a ground or reason b: an occurrence or condition that brings something about ; especially : the immediate inciting circumstance as distinguished from the fundamental cause
- happening , incident b: a time at which something happens : instances
- a need arising from a particular circumstance
Occasion based marketing or OBM has been the focus for grocery stores, QSRs, chewing gum, sports drinks for some time now. The concept is nothing new, but effective OBM programs can help create new usage occasions, leverage brand equity from participating partners or increase display space and in some cases even distribution.
In the soft drink business, occasion based marketing is centered around thirst occasions. For example, soft drinks are not only available on the soft drink aisles, but also in non-traditional areas of the store, cross-merchandised with chips, 20 oz bottles at the check-out counter that could be consumed on your way home, 2 liters near the meat counter because it is likely that the shopper picking up meat is cooking for more than one person, etc.
The idea behind occasion based marketing approaches is to connect when and why consumers use the product with how they shop for the product. In other words, looking for that “favorable opportunity or circumstance” or more likely, “an occurrence that brings something about”.
So….what does occasion based marketing mean for on-line consumers/users? I read a great article on this by Horacio D. Rozanski, Gerry Bollman and Martin Lipman – “Seize the Occasion: Usage-Based Segmentation for Internet Marketers“. The distinct usage occasions or usage-based segments are broken down as follows:
- quickies
- just the facts
- single mission
- do it again
- loitering
- information, please,
- surfing.
The opportunity for marketers will be to figure out how to leverage these online usage occasions to generate interest, and more importantly relevance, for their brands. It’s clear that occasion based marketing becomes more complex on-line. Marketers must not only find consumers at the right time, but also must determine the consumer’s goal for their on-line experience at that time. In this instance, marketers must truly ask themselves first “what’s the occasion?” in order to seize it.
