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How Brands are Leveraging Real-Time Consumer Research

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By: Wise Marketer Staff |

Posted on May 30, 2019

Most brands will agree that consumer insights are crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. But critical decisions are still made in a vacuum too often.

It’s a common scenario: The senior leadership team gets together and decides what consumers need based on personal anecdotes or something they read. Then, when the product doesn’t take off or the messaging is poorly received, the blame is placed on the teams in charge of marketing an idea birthed without any consumer feedback.

It’s easy to understand why many leadership teams run with a good idea before collecting customer insights. Traditional focus groups can be a time-consuming, costly, and draining experience. Plus, consumer tastes change so rapidly that all of the data could be invalid before the packaging is ever finalized. But, that doesn’t mean this integral process should be ignored. 

The Benefit of Instantly Validating Assumptions

Leading real-time consumer insights platform, Suzy connects brands directly to their target audiences within minutes, providing real-time feedback on any business decision, big or small. These insights help companies create products people want, ideas people love, and offers people actually need – without ever leaving the boardroom.

Here’s how real-time consumer insights has helped some of today’s biggest brands make informed marketing and advertising decisions to improve their return on investment.

Coca Cola Uses Consumer Tastes to Influence New Flavors of Odwalla Craft Ade

Before Coca Cola launched a new line of Odwalla Craft Ade flavors, it connected with consumers to determine which flavors would be most appealing to its target market by testing 15 different flavor combinations. Using a mixture of multiple choice and open-ended questions to receive both qualitative and quantitative results, Coca Cola found six clear winners: Blackberry Basil Lemonade, Lavender Mint Lemonade, Spicy Watermelon Lemonade, Tangerine Passionfruit Lemonade, Strawberry Guava Lemonade, and Pomegranate Limeade. The new line of lemonades resonated so well that Odwalla was named a winner of the National Restaurant Association Show’s 2019 Food and Beverage Innovation Awards.

Frozen Food Brand Thaws Insights Overnight

When brands invest in an expensive Super Bowl ad, they expect to get the best return on investment. Leaving audience reactions to chance on a stage of this magnitude can have devastating results and tarnish a brand’s reputation, which is clearly not an option. Before frozen food company DEVOUR settled on its edgy Super Bowl ad, the brand engaged Suzy to make a game-time decision on its “Food Porn” ad, to test two versions of the spot before advertising’s biggest night. In less than 24 hours, DEVOUR tested both ads among a general population audience and their male target audience using four metrics: Affinity (how much the groups liked the ad); Brand Fit (how much the content fit with the DEVOUR brand); Purchase Interest (how likely someone would be to purchase DEVOUR after seeing the ad); and Uniqueness (how new and different it was from other frozen meal brands). Ultimately, the research reinforced DEVOUR’s decision to deliver a Super Bowl ad that made viewers stop what they were doing to watch, resulting in significant increases in brand awareness and across key brand attributes.

Also Read: Elevating Marketing Through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

French Company Rebrands Before Expanding Across the Pond

When the beloved French cookie company Michel et Augustin set out to enchant Americans nationwide with their unique line of French pastry-inspired cookies, which are already iconic throughout France, they suspected they might need new, U.S.-facing packaging. They checked in with their target market. After redesigning their packaging for the U.S. market, Michel et Augustin A-B tested the new design against the original European packaging. The brand’s target audience confirmed that Michel et Augustin’s vibrant new packaging with bold graphics, eye-catching colors, and modern likenesses of the French pastry chef duo was, indeed, more appealing to Americans than the old packaging. As a result, the new packaging, including a new bag of individually-wrapped cookie squares, hit U.S. shelves nationwide in April 2019.

Using Actionable Insights to Inform Decisions

Whether companies both large and small are looking to expand into a new market, level-up their advertising, or introduce a new line of flavors, they must remember that the voice of today’s consumers has spawned unicorns and crippled entire industries, rewarding companies who put consumers first and crushing those who don’t. By leveraging real-time consumer insights — and removing the guesswork — brands can hit the bullseye every time.