The Snowball represents a graphical representation of consumer profile data. It presents a comparison of two different consumer segments regarding to a set of other variables (e.g. comparison of two segments of brand A and brand B users, regarding to demographics).

It's a smart data presentation tool that shows only the data that differentiates the consumer segments we want to compare and doesn’t presents the data that doesn’t differentiates the selected segments.

The Snowball calculates an index that compares the two segments we want to compare – in the example below we compare Ožujsko and Karlovačko beer. The Snowball divides the column percentages of specific descriptive variables (e.g. gander) within both segments (Karlovačko users and Ožujsko users) and produces an index (multiplies the result with 100).

Example: The procedure for calculating Snowball for gender - MALE (see below):
63,4 - the percentage of male respondents within Ožujsko users segment (Col % of Ožujsko users)
DEVIDED BY
57,6 - the percentage of male respondents within Karlovačko beer users segment (Col % of Karlovačko users)
= 1,10 …multiplied by 100 it represents the index of 110


The orientation table for the example of Snowball calculation – Gender distribution within beer brand users.

The index is interpreted as other indexes in PGM. An index of 100 means there are no differences between the segments, the more the index differs from 100 the more important the difference is. In case of gender we see that there is more male than female users within Ožujsko beer users than in Karlovačko beer users.


Snowball gives us the possibility to select the level of sensitivity. With the slider (market 1 on the picture below) you can select the level of sensibility. If you drive the slider all the way up it will present all the variables (the lowest level of sensibility), so it will filter no variables out and the sensibility will be set to 100/100 (see number 2 on the picture above – in the example it represents 102/98 – so indexes from 99 to 101 are filtered out).

The Snowball presents the variables that differentiate the two consumer segments in colour. The variables that are in red colour are more significant for the consumer segment in the red bracket regarding to the segment in the blue bracket (see number 3 above). The variables that are in blue colour are more significant for the segment in the blue bracket. The strength of the colour indicates the significance of the difference – the size of index.

The pie graphs on the edge of the Snowball

There are optional pie graphs on the edge of the snowball. They are primary used when shown snowballs for comparison of specific consumer segments with the overall population as they represent the Column percentages in the blue upper box in the Snowball.

What does that mean:
- the pie (with corresponding percentages between the segment name and index) represents the amount the respondents from the segment in the blue bracket (Croatian population) that correspond to the variable name stated on the Snowball branch. In case of gender we have 50% of female in Croatian population – whereas the index shows (78) a lot less female in the segment of Ožujsko beer users.