[ w3 ]
Investigate through ‘word frequency’
Through word frequency, I tried to find the behavior model of ‘consumers’ diet structure, consumption concept, lifestyle, and explore the connection with the social class. Explore whether the supermarket, as an infrastructure for providing food, has a decisive influence on social stratification.
“Der Mensch ist was er isst”
( Man is what he eats)
Ludwig Feuerbach 費爾巴哈
“ Everyone eats only what is in accord with his individuality or nature, his age, his sex, his social position and profession, his worth. Every class is what it eats according to its essential uniqueness and vice versa.” （Cherno, 1963）
Word frequency analysis on High-frequency words appearing at the same time – from Twitter
It was unexpectedly discovered that in 94 Waitrose strawberry tweets, “British” appeared nearly 20% of the time. these people like to eat strawberries with cream or chocolate or make them into cakes or jams.
At the same time, strawberries are the best taste of summer for those buyers. In general, eating strawberries is a very enjoyable thing, which basically appears as a positive statement.
Word frequency analysis on buyer reviews-from 4 kinds of strawberries
Hope to find:
- What kind of product do consumers expect when buying?
- Are their expectations different among different strawberries?
- What disappointed them?
Finding：
Based on the words frequency analysis of their positive and negative reviews, I think it can be concluded that consumers are expecting a difference in buying different strawberries.
In particular, for NO.1 (Waitrose’s best series), “best” really appeared in the praise. And “nothing” appeared in the negative evaluation of it, which is not as a high-frequency word in several other products.
For less than perfect strawberries, the praise is proved by the appearance of “lovely“, because the price is cheap and consumers don’t expect too many things, which is already very good for them.
The expectations are affected not only by price, but also by packaging, there is only 5 pence difference between “British” & “No.1”, but people will think that No.1 is the “best”.
Accidentally found – a video by an angry dad
“Waitrose duchy organic strawberries. All strawberries either rotten or bruised！”
“For the price you pay，the quantity is tiny and the quality is foul！”
Build up the Consumer Model through word frequency
Conduct the word frequency analysis from 6 customers who use #waitrosestrawberries and several other Waitrose No.1 fresh fruit tags.
Explore what’s kind of keywords often appear from 5-10 food posts they have made on Instagram.
Hope to find:
- What kind of people buy fruit in Waitrose?
- Why would they buy it?
- Is this related to their self-perception?
- How do they describe themselves?
Top5 keyword in their #waitrose posts
I divided the results into different layers. The words on the outer circle can summarize the words on the inner circle, and there is a progressive relationship in frequency and meaning.
“Healthy”, “vegan”, “life”, “wholesome”, “fitness”, “home”
It can be concluded that they are basically life lovers who pay great attention to healthy eating. According to research（Svastisalee, C., Holstein, B., and Due, P., 2012）, fruits, and vegetable intake is directly related to family income. And Waitrose as a relatively high-price supermarket, that focuses on quality and sustainability, is welcomed by these middle and high-income foodies, and families. Because this coincides with their self-perception of “eat healthy and delicious food”.
How does Supermarket become a hierarchical infrastructure ？
Hope to find:
- Why do supermarkets or customers need to have a classification?
- What’s the difference between the supermarkets?
- What did the supermarket do to cater to this classification?
When I tried to learn more about different supermarkets, I found that M&S and Waitrose both provide seasonal special magazines using paper publication conveying the atmosphere of enjoyment.
While Tesco and Aldi both provide online magazines, but focus on best prices use extremely high-contrast colors, bold fonts, shouting, “look at me, come and buy, I’m very cheap”.
Tesco magazine October 2020
Aldi Special-buys leaflet November
From their visual language, it is obvious that different atmospheres can be felt. The theme of Waitrose is how to eat healthily, high-class, enjoy the best food. This diet structure is created under the joint efforts of consumers and supermarkets.
discussion
“Consumption decisions express the civilized state, establish personal and collective identity, and mark social differences.” (Shapin, 2014)
Supermarkets have intensified the classification of society. It is the supermarkets’ choices to decide which customer or where the community they want to serve. This difference in diet structure is gradually implanted in different groups of people. When a person considers which one is cheaper to compare Aldi and Lidl every day, he will no longer think about how great organic tomatoes does Wholefood Market provide because it imported from other country and how environmentally friendly the packaging is.
This cannot be said it is the lifestyle different, most people want to be healthier with no doubt. Because an economic basis decides the superstructure, and your purchasing power is the only criterion for measuring the availability of food. In a study of 25,000 British families as a sample, a significant gap in fiber intake can be seen from different income families (Pechey, 2013). Foods enter your blood and organs, converted as your life fuel. Maybe at the beginning, the gap widened, because it’s like in a car race, one uses 98 and the other uses 92, even if they are the same car.
Bibliography
Cherno, M. (1963). ‘Feuerbach’s “Man is what He Eats”: A Rectification’. Journal of the History of Ideas, 24(3), p404. doi:10.2307/2708215
Svastisalee, C., Holstein, B., and Due, P., (2012) ‘Fruit and Vegetable Intake in Adolescents: Association with Socioeconomic Status and Exposure to Supermarkets and Fast Food Outlets’. Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, Volume 2012, Article ID 185484, pp.1-9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/185484
Pechey, R. et al. (2013) ‘Socioeconomic differences in purchases of more vs. less healthy foods and beverages: Analysis of over 25,000 British households in 2010’. Social Science & Medicine, Volume 92, Pages 22-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.05.012
Shapin, S. (2014)‘You are what you eat’: historical changes in ideas about food and identity, Historical Research, Volume 87, Issue 237, Pages 377–392, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12059