A world leading ice cream brand launched a store in one of the largest malls in UAE. Despite having a premium location, the store was having difficulties generating traffic and sales compared to other stores within the same proximity. The client wanted to test a few hypothesis to understand the reason why the footfalls & sales were not as expected.

We have applied a holistic research involving both qualitative and quantitative approaches, to evaluate – the visibility of the store; consumers’ level of awareness; customers’ needs & expectations and triggers & barriers.

The qualitative approach included intercept IDIs with walk-in customers to assess the location awareness and reasons for visiting the store. Simultaneously a static camera was installed outside the store to observe traffic, footfalls and movement pattern.

The quantitative phase was conducted post the qualitative phase – store/shopper observation and intercept (exit) interviews to understand customers profiles, purchase frequency, perceptions, triggers and barriers.

The research helped the client to explore key insights and opportunities for their store to increase engagement chances, drive higher visibility and improve their design.

A brand of fresh food was losing shares in a segment where they have been the market leader. Despite the introduction of a new packaging design, the brand continued to lose share to competition. To arrest this, the client wanted to assess the impact of the new pack on decline in shares.

A shop shelf assessment was conducted with both old and new packs from the brand as well as key competition to gauge spontaneous preference as well as understand the difference between old vs. new pack. Focus Group Discussions were then conducted for deeper understanding of the category, choice drivers, brand preference and packaging.

To understand impact among current users as well as those who had recently stopped using the brand, the study focused on meeting both users as well as recent lapser to a key competition brand.

The study found that loss of shares in fact was not a result of dissatisfaction with new pack. New packaging was acknowledged as a marked improvement vs. old. The critical issue lay in the brand not being able to capitalize on this with the renovation in pack often going unnoticed on the shop shelf. Concerns with regards to some unfavorable associations with product quality + price issues were uncovered.

 

TESTIMONIAL:

“On behalf of the Consumer Insights Team, we would like to let you know that we appreciate the efforts and the hard work that was put in by the team for our recent projects. We have clearly noticed that your understanding of our categories is exceling and that is visibly showing dedication. Thanks”

Group Head, Consumer Insights

Based on past research, the client recognized an opportunity to modernize packaging among their target group. New pack options were to be designed to incorporate the brand vision & help streamline portfolio design.

Digital Immersions were first conducted to understand current interaction with shisha packs – purchase, usage, storage and pain points during these moments. This was followed by Co-creation workshops to further fine-tune the proposed design options in conjunction with client team + designer based on consumer feedback. Once finalized, the packs were taken into Focus Group Discussions to evaluate the design options & create the ideal pack for the consumer.

The core target group was included in some of the clients’ key markets representing both the Middle East (UAE, Iraq) as well as Western Markets (Germany, USA).

The findings from research indicated that the current pack had long standing associations with heritage and a certain ethnic feel to it. An attempt to modernize required a marked shift to a more global design. A bold, clutter breaking colour scheme and design was adopted for the pack with heavy focus on factors that would weave in current comfort through certain elements (logo, images, brand name). The new packs were rolled out in Q4 2019 in some of the key markets.

Assess retention rate among own franchise, understand reasons for turn-over (alienation, if any) and assess impact of pack change on the overall brand as also on taste perceptions, taste satisfaction and brand imagery in KSA, UAE and Kuwait.

Panel of adult brand users created and used to measure impact of the pack change, pre and post launch. Panel-based measurement among the same adult brand users at a pre-launch stage (1 month before launch) and post-launch stage (1 month after launch).

There was an issue with the distribution of the new pack in one of the 3 countries, leading to lower awareness and usage (a third were still using the old pack). That said, the launch of the new pack did not lead to any dissonance in any of the markets – brand retention was 100%.

The new pack also had a significant positive impact on brand perceptions – improvement in taste perception was a positive collateral impact, although in reality,, no changes were made to the product.

The brand seemed to have lost relevance and therefore, suffered an alienation from core category franchise. This was because of excess focus on flavours, instead of the core beverage intrinsic platform. The need was to reinforce the intrinsic core, to win back lost franchise.

A Concept-cum-Product Test was conducted, to evaluate the new communication and 3 formulations developed to reinforce the brand’s intrinsic core

Focus on understanding the “why” was emphasized by the Client and therefore, we ensured that adequate probes were included that would be coded by the researcher. A central location test was conducted. Product improvement cues, if any, expected as a derived outcome.

The communication needed some more work, to capture consumer attention – the tested Concept failed to provide adequate details on the 3 formulations, in terms of how they were designed to address core needs from the category.

2 of the 3 formulations were ready for launch. The third formulation was deemed ahead of its time in the market that had been exposed to flavoured variants for long. The taste and appearance profiles were stronger than present taste palates. We recommended a delayed launch of this formulation, as consumer attention was brought back to category core intrinsics through the other 2 formulations.

A world leader in beauty and cosmetics was looking at launching their in-store POS and below the line communication in a new market in the region. The need was to effectively translate a “Global Style and make up positioning” in the market context without losing the essence of the brand while retaining its global appeal.

Extended creative co-creation workshops with respondents were conducted to translate the global beauty and make up symbology that would resonate in a local context.

The challenge was to bring alive the finer nuances of beauty, the expression of it through make up, that can provide actionable cues for the brand. Hence extensive use of style maps, style time lines, dressing up of model cut outs etc. was done in groups to bring alive each minute style manifestation – eyes, hair, nails, clothes, in order to contextualise a global concept to fit local identity.

The outcome was a clear visual, emotional and stylized personification of the global brand personality in a local context. The advertising agency was briefed with very clear direction for POS and communication cues. The insights were used by the global branding agency, as a critical input for infusing local elements in a global brand image without compromising the core identity of the brand.

The client would like to be the employer of choice in the region and have satisfied employees, who would impact motivation, engagement and in turn loyalty

All employees were targeted across business line, experience, job function, gender and nationality across the region covering Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and UAE.

Online interviews were done amongst the client’s employees.

The research helped the client’s HR team in identifying areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among employees. Other key evaluation metrics included recommending the client for the future prospects, the optimism of own future within the company, their pride in working with the company and finally arriving at the Employee Engagement Index.

Exploring music among teens & young adults in Iraq.

A qualitative approach – digital ethnography followed by focus groups to explore the lives of teens & young adults in Iraq & the role of music in their lives.

Design: A week long digital ethnography helped capture their music choices as they were listening. It also helped get audio/ video files, their playlists, etc. The focus groups were used to further build on the digital ethnos & understand reasons behind the kind of music they listen to. The study was conducted across Baghdad & Irbil.

The research was able to bring to life the circumstances under which the youth of Iraq lead their lives & the kind of music that connects with them. The impact of the recent past has had a huge influence on the music genres they listen to.

The insights were able to help the client plan the genres of music they can promote to help bring back hope into the lives of this young audience.

To test the new product concepts of Organic Dairy milk

A Qualitative concept testing study to evaluate the new concepts around organic milk. Two distinct concepts were tested among their target customers.

Design: Focus Group Discussions among mothers across the specific age groups. Saudi nationals, consumers of dairy products like Milk, Laban, UHT milk and Yoghurt categories. Regular users of Organic food and consumers who are health conscious and like to shift to Organic food for health benefits.

The research helped the client measure consumer acceptance levels of the concepts in terms of basic appeal and motivation, value, rational benefits, synergy, relevance, and differentiation. It also helped identify if the brand is perceived as an innovative brand.

The research helped the client to expand their product portfolio and drive new sales growth beyond the existing arena of dairy products offered in the market.

“The presentation was balanced both in terms of content and aesthetics.
Really appreciate your attention to details and commitment to deliver as per client requirements

Thumbs up & Good work !”

Product optimization to improve the profitability in KSA, Egypt & Lebanon

A Quantitative research with both rationalization & superiority objectives. To fuel growth by assessing the level of risk (among the core brand users) of launching a cost-optimized recipe. To validate the brand superiority (vs. competition) driven by the new cost-optimized recipe.

Design: Two core & distinct objectives led to two different methodologies tailored to each objective. Products tested in a controlled environment (taste being the main focus). Sequential monadic test.

For the product rationalization objective, the research helped in decision-making, by comparing the new cost-optimized recipe with the current recipe, on key action standard measures. Alienation/potential risk was estimated, if the client decides to move to the new recipe.

For the product superiority objective, the research helped in decision-making, by comparing the new cost-optimized recipe with key competition products, on key action standard measures, among the category users. The forced product preference helped the client to take a decision, wherever products were at parity when tested monadically. Mapping all the products on all the attributes visualized the grouping/ relationship between products & attributes.

The performance of the new recipe was also benchmarked with the norms database for the category, to check if it meets the top 25 percentile norms criteria. For diagnostic understanding, correlation & driver analysis were done to understand the inter-linkages between the attributes & their hierarchy. Attributes were prioritized for improvement based on the performance of the new recipe on the respective product drivers. Further, the direction of product improvement was identified using the penalty analysis, making the research recommendations very actionable.

“Great stuff. The report was well integrated, it also delved into the past learnings and benchmarked against the success norms. The directions for product improvement are very clear.”

Senior CMI Manager