Mention the phrase "the average consumer" to a market research professional. Then stand back and watch the sparks fly.

The ubiquity of customer loyalty schemes means you can now slice and dice consumer information to such a level that marketers can pinpoint an individual who buys block butter and a jar of jam on Monday and send them a money-off coupon for a pack of scones by Friday.

"Average consumer" doesn't come into it.

But food companies have been criticised for their inability to optimize this wealth of information.

The latest advance, unveiled at this week's IJMR Research Methods Forum, is a new form of attitudinal research, which goes beyond analysis of what consumers buy and examines why they make the purchases they do.

It involves a 65,000-strong online panel of Tesco Clubcard customers where shoppers are quizzed within hours of making their purchase. Early adopters of a new product, for example, can be sought for interview and deliver feedback within days of the product hitting the shelves.

The retailer and supplier can then monitor the relationship between attitudes and behaviour and link marketing with the data.

"It means predicting future market trends is rooted in fact," says Martin Hayward, director of strategy and futures at Dunnhumby, the consultancy that developed the tool.

"It's an opportunity to target research at individuals and see if they do what they say they will."

The accusation against the food industry is that too few companies are taking advantage of the mine of such data now available to them.

"While the speed and accuracy of the insight available has undergone a step change in recent years, many planning processes have hardly changed at all," says Hayward. "It takes ages to plan and execute marketing communications and promotions, and insight is shared occasionally rather than continuously."

The implication is that many marketing communications and promotions are unresponsive to consumer behaviour.

So far, just 80 of Tesco's suppliers are making use of the data, the vast majority of which are brand leaders.

"A lot of companies haven't caught up," says Hayward. "Responses are still generally based on a past world where it takes months to read the market."

Savvy marketers, meanwhile, are trawling the internet to discover what people are saying about their brand, a new concept known as webnography.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, along with blogs and chat rooms, are awash with information about how consumers are using products.

"Webnography is a means of gaining insights into brand performance and finding out what people are saying about your product," said Anjali Puri, director of product development and management for Nielsen, speaking at the IJMR forum.

Companies such as Cadbury and Procter & Gamble are exponents of the web for research purposes. "It gives you insight into groups that are often closed to traditional research methods, such as youths," said Puri. "It is also great for assessing the competition - what brands are mentioned in the same conversation as your brand."

Webnography is currently used in a fly-on-the-wall manner for fear of contaminating the conversation. The result is a natural, spontaneous response, which retains the authenticity face-to-face interviews often lack. Some fmcg companies are even hiring experts on semiotics to analyse the discourse of the web community.

"The web has a lot of promise for market research," says Puri. "It's up to us as market research professionals to acquire the skills to make the most of this space." n