Consumer preferences and purchase behaviour in over-the-counter pain relief

The brief

Understand how shoppers choose between over-the-counter pain relief products at the shelf, in a category where brand loyalty is high, price sensitivity is real, and most purchase decisions take under fifteen seconds.

The problem

Post-hoc recall in this category is poor. Shoppers reconstruct a rationale that sounds sensible and bears limited relation to what happened at the shelf. Anything that relied on memory of the decision would have measured the reconstruction.

What we did

• In-store intercepts within two minutes of purchase across pharmacy and grocery channels
• Short intercept instrument capturing what was considered, not just what was bought
• Follow-up online interview 48 hours later with the same respondents, to compare immediate and recalled accounts
• Traditional trade covered face to face in two markets where it carries significant category volume

The outcome

The two accounts diverged substantially. At the shelf, availability and format drove most switching; two days later, respondents attributed the same decisions to efficacy and brand trust.

That divergence became the central finding of the study, and it was only measurable because the design captured both accounts from the same people.