drive sales of your products

HOW TO DRIVE SALES IN YOUR FMCG’S. PRICE REDUCTION IS NOT ALWAYS THE ANSWER

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In a time when the supermarket giants are driving prices down, down, down, how can you stay on top of the game, maintain product quality, and continue sales growth for your products?

Delivering a good product experience is essential to repeat purchase and will help drive organic sales growth.  Most consumers will not re-buy an inferior product – no matter how cheap it is.  People are willing to compromise on product quality when buying a cheaper product, but there is a limit.

At a recent research conference in Sydney, Damian Young – General Manager Marketing at Chobani, spoke about Chobani’s success story and the strategy they used to drive sales from around $200k when they first launched in Australia in 2011, to over $90 million in 2016.

Young explained that they had a low media budget and had to come up with a sound strategy to drive growth in the presence of many long standing competitors like Yoplait and Ski.  There were four key parts: Read more →

FMCG Reformulation Consumer Taste Test

How to Avoid a FMCG Reformulation Disaster

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Humans are amazing at detecting differences in things, particularly in food and beverages. With our refined senses, we can distinguish small changes in taste, mouthfeel, appearance and smell.

Never before has consumer feedback on products been so transparent and instant.  When consumers are unhappy with a change in their usual product they are quick to jump onto Facebook and Twitter to voice their outrage.

When reformulating, FMCG producers must avoid alienating their loyal users.  If a new formulation is not liked or accepted by the current users of the product, then the producer risks losing precious market share and negatively affecting brand perceptions.

It’s not just small players who can fail to transition to a new formulation, any sized company can be at risk. Here are some recent examples. Read more →

Sensory Research Quality Price Australia

Is the Quality of Your FMCG In-Line with its Price?

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Quality and price are perceived as positively correlated by consumers.  In general, as price points increase, so does our perceptions of quality.  This holds true for many brands, however, we can all recall examples of when we have bought a cheaper version of a product and been pleasantly surprised by its quality (expectations were exceeded), and also when we have bought a more expensive product only to be disappointed (it failed to deliver).

 

In the world of food and beverages, quality is directly related to how much consumers like a product and how it delivers on key sensory measures such as taste, texture, aroma etc.

 

A good strategy for producers of FMCG’s is to keep on top of how your product and its competitors are performing on key sensory measures with a routine category audit.  This enables you to track the quality and purchase interest of your product versus competitors over time, and make sure yours is consistently performing at an acceptable level.  It also gives you insights into any changes Read more →

Quantitative Market Research FMCG Australia

Get Your Pack Right, But Don’t Ignore What’s Inside It

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A client came to us needing to check the consumer acceptance of a new beverage they had launched.  The new product had achieved great success initially, however, after a few months sales steadily declined.  Their solution had been to change the pack design, but this didn’t produce the desired effect so they engaged our help.

 

When asked what research had been conducted during the NPD process, the answer was none.  Some rudimentary tastings were conducted around the lab table and that was it.  We suggested that an unbranded/blind taste test of the product range be carried out with their target market to determine if the products were performing at an acceptable ‘market ready’ level.  Not surprisingly, the research revealed that the drinks were less than satisfactory on tasting.  None of the variants met the benchmark for an acceptable product to be launched into the market place. Read more →

Innovation R&D Research Development Sensory Australia

A Great Innovations/R&D Team are Worth Their Weight in Gold

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People who are experienced, passionate about their work, and genuinely care about making a difference usually succeed in their career – regardless of their industry.  In the case of Innovations or Research & Development (R&D) for Fast Moving Consumer Good’s (FMCG’s) these characteristics are invaluable.

 

Consumer sensory research is usually conducted prior to the launch of a new product.  We therefore get to see the standard produced by many different R&D teams.  Some only ever produce mediocre products that require many changes and usually further sensory research.  Some are inconsistent and either hit or miss the target, while others consistently produce market ready products. It is the latter group that provide cost efficiencies for their company and the best chance of success for their new product. Read more →