Defining a growth strategy within the food & drink category requires getting deep below the surface of consumer decision making.
Take juice, for example. One might think having the best tasting product is all that’s needed. But unfortunately, because we humans are an unpredictable lot, perception of taste is impacted by a myriad of external factors and not only what something actually tastes like.
Packaging, price, name – not to mention time of day or what cutlery we’re using – our gustatory faculties can be very easily influenced.
So, while having the right product is critical, successful growth requires careful balancing with brand and a mastery of subtle cues designed to aid perceptual discrimination.
To identify these, we needed to get as close as possible to the moment of consumer choice. Our programme deployed digital communities across the UK, France and Germany and a series of projective and creative exercises, to do just that:
Safari missions delivered a naturalistic at-shelf evaluation of packaging and claims in a variety of retail settings. Taste tests merged expectations with reality, using video to capture the moment of truth at first sip. Meanwhile, our team of native semioticians curated a huge range of data sources to create a coherent picture of residual and emerging trends.
Taken collectively, we uncovered the cultural signifiers – powerful associations, themes, visual cues, codes and narratives – that create emotional connections. This helped to identify the critical imagery and messaging that would work as levers for innocent’s long-term strategic growth within the portfolio.
Oh, and we proved the drinks tasted really good, too.