Global markets are shifting, with manufacturers reaching nearly saturated demand levels within developed countries. New economy countries are gaining huge focus. Both manufacturers and marketers are racing for a bigger share of the pie, though with relatively small investment pockets. The business objective of 'growth with constrained investments' demands businesses perform on a high volume/high ROI matrix. This presentation provides an approach towards building the application and implementation of data driven decisions along with business hypotheses, experience and judgment in driving business performance.
This paper discusses innovation process performance in FMCG and blind spots in the classical research sequence. Using case studies, it demonstrates how a combination of relevant 'touch and feel' stimuli and behavioral research techniques can help solve the paradox of early testing of 'the real thing' in a 'real context' with a product that does not yet exist. It reviews 'design thinking' good practices that have helped Kraft deliver successful innovations with shorter time-to-market, thanks to 360° shopper-user understanding.
After the rapid and widespread emergence of online access panels, we are currently witnessing a new trend towards online custom panels that are specifically built, used and managed for research purposes of one company or its brand(s). This study compares the online access panel 'XL Online Panels' with a dedicated and branded online research panel from Heinz, generating conclusions on the relative advantages and disadvantages related to using either of them. Specific attention is paid to panel member conditioning (broadly defined as changes in response patterns over time due to learning) and quality. Differences in conditioning and quality in the Heinz and control panel are highlighted and the implications for online market research and panel management are discussed.
The paper illustrates the launch and development of the Heinz 'Weightwatchers' brand from 1985 to 1990 with particular attention paid to the contribution of research to this development, i.e. why research was necessary and how the results impacted on strategic development.
This paper describes how a programme of research based around a novel means of collecting data has enabled Heinz to optimise its performance in the promotions area and develop a framework within which the performance of specific promotions can be evaluated. Though Heinz used traditional research to evaluate the success of consumer promotions, the costs of these relative to the promotion cost, meant that no consistent framework for evaluation was used to track the effectiveness of individual promotions. This paper describes the development of a more cost-effective way of providing tactical data to marketing, using sales promotion techniques (in the form of foil-printed self-completion questionnaires) to gather profile data from those responding to particular offers. The paper presents some findings from a detailed study of three live promotions based on a total sample of 20,037 responding from a postal study and a further 1,531 telephone interviews conducted amongst a sample of postal non-responders. It also outlines how Heinz are using this and other data to provide a means of evaluating promotional effectiveness.