[patio11]

Is that like "WTF, the primary market for this is not upper middle class women" or "WTF, you are being very blunt about this." If the second, guilty as charged. If the first, I'd very much like to hear who you think buys premium-priced balsamic.

[snowwrestler]

Women who are older than PTA age. The percent of old people in the population is increasing, and older women tend to have more money, more time, and fewer kids in the house. Most PTA moms in the U.S. do not feel they have the time or money for premium groceries one might linger over. They do care about healthy, but they're not feeding their kids premium balsamic.

[coldtea]

That's not at all that the PC parent meant by this.

And I don't think it's true either -- that older people are the major buyers of premium groceries. I don't see that many older people when I go into premium grocery stores -- except if by that you mean 35-50.

[dragonwriter]

> Is that like "WTF, the primary market for this is not upper middle class women" or "WTF, you are being very blunt about this." [...] If the first, I'd very much like to hear who you think buys premium-priced balsamic.

Upper-middle class foodies. Who are probably less likely to be women than the market for non-premium balsamic.

[mechanical_fish]

This is a fine hypothesis but, without data, it's hard to see why it's probable. In the USA, two-thirds of grocery shopping is done by women. There are studies:

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2011/in-u-s-men-are-sh...

...which suggest that men make 38% of retail grocery shopping trips. So, if you're going to envision a representative person who is looking for a grocery item, you should probably start out by envisioning a woman.

It is, unsurprisingly, difficult to find more specific information online for free. Instead, by googling "market analysis salad dressing", I find approximately six market research organizations that offer to sell me a report. Perhaps the OP has bought such a thing, but none of the rest of us are likely to bother.

Of course, what actually matters when trying to convert website visitors is not the demographics of the universe, or of US grocery buyers, or even of US buyers of balsamic vinegar, but the behavior of the people who are actually reaching the website. About whom we really know nothing.

[newobj]

Let's focus on your "moms of the PTA" comment.

[patio11]

OK. Can you articulate why you object to me using those words, now that we're in apparent agreement that the target customer is actually an upper middle-class woman? I mean, I know why it would cause a few of my professors to sputter, but their rationale for that isn't persuasive. Maybe yours is.

[ktsmith]

Your summary is my sister in law and her mommy group friends. They would totally buy this stuff if they thought it would make them "better" than the other women in the mommy group or if it were more socially conscious in some way so it could be a talking/bragging point at the next mommy meeting.

[tmandarano]

To his credit, "moms of the PTA" are quite close to our target customer.

[coldtea]

Yes. It's a social critique style comment.

It doesn't have to represent the 100% of the consumers of such products. Just the majority.

And by the unwritten rules of how we talk about such things (in essays and such), they don't even have to be "moms of the PTA" literally. It's enough to be "moms of the PTA"-like, ie. ascribing to belong (and exhibit) the same kind of social characteristics (class, sophistication, etc) as "moms of the PTA".