How can a consumer goods and healthcare business breath new life into their dying brand? By developing a strategy and product offer that is based on a clear understanding of the category from the consumers’ perspective, and how this really drives market penetration, product use and brand choice.
When a business has marketed and sold leading brands in a category for decades, it can feel like there is nothing new to understand and that there is no opportunity for growth, let alone strong sustained growth. Faced with stagnating sales and growth of retailer brands, our client was faced with the choice of pulling back investment in the brand to maximise margins or find a way to reinvigorate sales growth.
To decide whether the business should try to reinvigorate their sales, we needed to understand if reinvigorating sales was possible and what was the potential for sales. By answering these questions, the business was also able to understand how much to invest in reinvigorating the brand. We initially answered these questions by analysing penetration, value and volume sales across regional and overseas markets. This analysis showed that the local market had not achieved the same per capita results as other comparable markets and that if the business was able to achieve similar results to other markets, the business could deliver strong long-term growth.
Uncovering what was holding back increased market penetration meant we needed to speak to those consumers who were not buying into the category but using alternative solutions. To do this we undertook a series of in-home personal interviews and group discussions that focussed on usage occasions, usage behaviour and decision making. Critically, we studied what was preventing consumers to buy into the category. While these results provided insights for brand and communication development, we undertook a large-scale segmentation study that included usage and attitude for not just the category but also alternative solutions. A secondary stage for the study included in-store shopper observation research. This broader view showed us exactly who we competed with and what we needed to offer for our brand and product. The segmentation study provided a focus for the most profitable segments who we could more easily convert into the category.
The results from project led to significant changes in the brand’s marketing, improved distribution and the launch of new products. These changes resulted in the brand achieving immediate and long-term growth that propelled the brand into first place for market share.