Personality types for national retail trade
chains.

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Business man REWE meets party girl PENNY.

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ROOS agency from Bonn/Germany developed personality types for national retail trade chains based on market research.

 

“Trade in Germany is neither homogeneous nor stereotypical. That’s an obvious result of our study”, says Michael Roos, holder of the ROOS agency for brand activation. In cooperation with the well-known market research institute prolytics, he commissioned an analysis about market personalities of national retail trade companies.

 

“Brands are like humans. They need to be perceived with positive features to be well accepted and successful”, Roos explains his initial thought: “We asked: What would Edeka or REWE look like as human beings?”

 

Thus, prolytics carried out a qualitative examination on the basis of the psychological model “Big Five”, containing eight one-on-one interviews of two hours as well as a representative online survey with 504 participants, which had to assign personal traits to retail chains. Afterwards, those were graphically converted into cartoons.

 

Conclusion: Edeka is a cultivated lady with an elitist appearance, whereas REWE is a friendly and competent gentleman, type newsreader. Kaufland is a jovial craftsman, who reared his almost grown-up children in a suburban terraced house; Aldi is a matter-of-fact businessman with a box-shaped head. Netto comes along rather scruffy with five o’clock shadow; Penny has the cheeky aura of a party girl.

 

The ROOS agency and prolytics constructed faces for nine companies in total. This is on the one hand entertaining, but on the other provides input for the retailers themselves to question one’s own image. 

“The study can help retailers to identify crucial adjusting screws and turn these around”, says Michael Roos.