Stovetop cleaner gets a do-over.
Company plans to get sales cooking with new package design.
A household cleaner company wants to change its packaging design and label to jump-start stagnant sales, improve its shelf-appeal vs. the competition, and reduce packaging costs.
OBJECTIVES
Three key objectives are set:
1. Develop detailed personas for target consumers.
Develop narrative profiles that cover her pet peeves, attitudes/beliefs, response to messaging, what she expects from the brand experience, her media habits and overall how she thinks, acts and makes decisions. Detailed profiles are important since consumer research can’t be performed until she is identified.
2. Test new packaging design vs. current packaging design.
Create and test initial packaging designs. Based on feedback from the research groups, packaging designs are modified and retested until new designs score dramatically better and more impactful than both the current design as well as the competition.
3. Identify the most impactful label messaging.
Use research to identify the product benefits of both the company’s brand and competitors’ brands that resonate most with the target consumer. Work directly with the company to determine how best to communicate those benefits on the new label, packaging, and other marketing materials.
SERVICES
For this project, the primary service required is:
Concept Validation (link to more info below)
Validation of a new concept or product requires extensive research, typically on multiple levels. First, to determine the segment(s) of the market in which the most profitable and loyal female consumers are likely to be found. Second, to gain a deep and thorough understanding of how they respond to the product, corporate brand, message, and other variables BEFORE the company invests heavily in the venture. A moderate, up front investment in validation research often prevents large amounts of wasted capital on failed ideas after the fact.
METHODOLOGIES
To determine the target consumer and validate this product, the following methodology is employed:
- Online Quantitative Study
To analyze preferences between the current and new packaging designs, a large-scale, online quantitative study is conducted among a sample of target audience consumers. During the course of this study, visual representations of the company’s labels and packaging (both current and new concepts) are presented to the respondents. In addition, the respondents also see labels and packing designs of the top two competitors. From everything presented, respondents are asked to rank their preferences based on packaging, label and brand name and to order the products based on various product attributes. Finally, the respondents are shown just the two packaging designs of the company (current and new) and asked for their preference.
RESULTS
(Due to the confidential nature of research projects and client agreements in force, specific results cannot be shared. Outcomes have been synthesized based on an amalgam of results from similar projects.)
The result of this very common, but very useful, exercise is that the company learns just how bad their current label and package designs are. Not only do a majority of target consumers prefer the competitor’s designs, but they also prefer the company’s proposed new designs. Clearly the company was right when they sensed it was time for a design change.
In addition to confirming the desperate need for brand new brand design, the research also delivers valuable insights to the company regarding the key messages that resonate most with their target audience –insights they will use well into the future.