.png)
Core Consumer Overhaul
Target Consumer Segmentation & Restage for Leading U.S. Food CPG
The Challenge:
Brought on by a legacy U.S.-based global food & beverage CPG seeking to restage company's target consumer strategy, to transform from one single persona / profile to segmented unique personas for all four of the company's category verticals, with goal to enhance marketing reach, efficiency, and minimize waste $ due to overlap.
The Action:
Analyzed leading trends & lagging data for each category's current/core buyers to identify target consumer opportunity utilizing:
-
IRI / NPD (Circana) sales & panel data i.e. cross-purchase indices
-
Use occasions & host food data (NPD, Tastewise, Datassential)
-
Social listening
-
Qual virtual focus groups
-
Quant survey among current product & category users to identify unique PODs and RTBs
What Happened:
New segments enhanced overall company reach by 86%, to tens of millions more potential consumers, leading to the company's highest revenue fiscal year to date following implementation.
Breakthrough Legacy Brand Campaign
Unlocking brand-led growth by tapping insights + creativity to drive relevance with a new younger consumer set.
The Challenge:
In 2015, Hellmann's mayonnaise (Best Foods brand west of the Rockies) was losing share with millennials and in dire need of a marketing communications campaign that would re-position and drive re-appraisal of the brand with this younger consumer.
The Action:
1. Insight mining: identified 2 key truths (1) sandwiches are top food for target & mayo, (2) food becoming a form of self-expression & social currency.
2. Briefed media 1st: produced strategy fit for moment/mindset of target: digital & social-first
3. Briefed creative 2nd: landed on concept called #Strangewich - the humble sandwich as a nostalgic canvas for your wildest culinary ideas
4. Refined the delivery: via quant & qual testing, made major revisions to visual approach, hero'ing food
What Happened:
Final test creative (produced for <$100K) was so successful and such a hit with the core audience in tested that it ended up not only being used for the digital and social campaign but also had TV dollars put behind it. Day zero of launch featured a Twitter blitz of celebs and influencers sharing their #Strangewich and resulted in one of the best performances of a sponsored hashtag to date. In the 12 months post launch the core business grew 5%, agnostic of any pricing action or major competitive action, meaning the campaign was a key contributor to this major growth. Penetration momentum with millennials has continued since then, with the campaign anniversary'd nearly a decade following, including a cross-brand collaboration with the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.
Diving Deep to Uncover a Brand Positioning Sweet Spot
Scoping & Development of White Space Consumer Product Platform in Plant Based Space
The Challenge:
Following acquisition by a leading global private equity firm, the CMO of the new mid-size multi-national consumer goods entity sought new avenues of value creation to supplement large slow-growth managed scale legacy brands at core of acquisition portfolio.
The Action:
Delivered a soup-to-nuts new product platform and brand leveraging the company's core R&D capabilities to extend into new premium consumer demand spaces. Began with market landscape analysis and qual & quant consumer insight mining, followed by concept testing, naming exercise, brand visual identity development, formula and pack development, strategic procurement exercise, and finally price-pack architecture quant research.
What Happened:
Platform launched in 2021 utilizing all strategic direction plus an existing but low-awareness brand mark. Leveraging key persuasive insights with priority customers, quickly became the #1 fastest growing brand product platform of its kind in Whole Foods and then all of US grocery, mass retail, and food service.