Real Connection Drives Real Results:The Key to Winning in Today's Value-Seeking Market

We are seeing belt-tightening on the consumer side as well as the B2B side. The truth is, seeking value is a good thing. It is something we should hold ourselves accountable for all the time. Brands and companies should deliver enough value to be prioritized and research agencies need to do the same.?

Consumers still spend plenty of money but want to feel good about it. There is still a thrill in saying yes to an irrational urge; the difference now is that there is also a thrill in balancing that yes out with a different buying moment where a sensible choice is made. Whether switching to private label or adding a trip to Aldi, the risk of lost sales is real for brands.

Brands are learning they need to deliver great value and ensure the value translates to shoppers at the speed of buying. TPRs and pricing work can help in most categories, but brands are brands for a reason and need to leverage innovation to survive and stay relevant. Good concepts are out there, but they need to be frictionless and amazing for shoppers to understand and say yes. Do the work to find these concepts and then do what it takes to optimize them so shoppers can appreciate the goodness.?

Likewise, marketing and insights budgets are still largely intact, but agencies face a more discerning client audience - and for good reason. It is so easy for research spend to underdeliver on value, but the right research can make all the difference.?

Boost your ROI

We recently finished fielding a $40,000 project conscripted to help an innovation land in optimal packaging. To do this, we put the product in a “for sale” position in the actual category. Our in-store method and Win At-Shelf Framework? helped us understand what was happening with the package design. In the process, we learned the product concept wasn’t delivering a valued benefit to the category. The right package wouldn’t do enough to help this product warrant the seven-figure slotting expense. The key marketing leaders saw the fatal flaw and were grateful to learn before it was too late. That said, the two years of research done prior to us getting brought in clearly did not deliver strong value, but ours did. Turning $40K into over $1MM of savings is a great ROI.??

Real connection with the real people buying your products is the key to finding the path to being valued. “Consumer obsession” that only focuses on dashboards or specific metrics is neither consumer obsession nor a successful strategy. Let’s embrace this as a chance to get better, do better, and serve others better. As always, we can help.?