There is a powerful trend toward launching new products in test markets. Some organisations use this as a way to skip the stage-gate process and get to market faster in a competitive landscape, while others aim to mitigate risk. Drinkworks, an AB InBev and Keurig joint venture, adopted a launch-and-learn strategy to bring their new-to-world Home Bar system to market. Realizing that there is only value in a test market strategy if you allow real consumer insights to fuel the fire at every stage, Drinkworks partnered with AMC Global (a leader in new product launch research), to create a best-in-class research plan for the Drinkworks Home Bar launch.
This paper showcases a research framework that integrates insights on shopper observation, shopping environment, retailer servicing issues with shopper interviews to create a powerful tool that can help us understand the shopper better. The uniqueness of this approach lies in the synthesis of data across all the lenses: Exit Interviews, Observations, Retailer Interviews as well as outlet profiling. It is a powerful example of applying learnings from Retail Audit and Consumer behaviour to scale up into a shopper understanding framework. This framework has already been rolled out across 8 markets. It offers a holistic framework that uses new thinking to provide actionable research
Significant coverage of the dramatic events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has elevated the interest in doing business in these areas on the part of business people, government officials, and consumers alike. The importance of this activity to both the once controlled economies and the United States can not be overstated. One mechanism for achieving this business activity - joint ventures - is the focus of this article. All aspects of using research to examine U.S. joint venture activity in Hungary is discussed with particular respect to the resultant joint venture being a good mechanism for entering other markets in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, as well as the European Community.
Today many companies prefer to enter into partnerships, cooperation arrangements or joint ventures even in industrially advanced countries, and these are often the only ways for a permanent market presence in the East European socialist and in some of the developing countries. Cooperation may also contribute to the solution of some domestic production or procurement problems. Several surveys show that the most important motives inducing a company to seek cooperation are in the marketing field. Cooperation has become a marketing strategy, although a company may derive a number of other - not strictly marketing - benefits from cooperation. Once the strategic decision has been taken the tasks of formulating the cooperation objective, selecting the most suitable country and finding the partner must be solved. A number of institutions already exist for this purpose, but do not make up for the services that market research organisations can provide. Industrial cooperation is a fast growing new form of international economic relations. It is worth the attention of marketing experts, as the best methods for promoting cooperation are still being worked out.