The Challenge
Faced with 17 potential in-store executions, a manufacturer needed to come up with a winning strategy for introducing their new product in-store. The business was facing fundamental location questions while looking for a rock solid sales story that could be customized to individual retail customers.
The Method
The manufacturer leveraged InContext’s virtual solutions in 4 different phases:
- Phase 1: Identify Leading Concepts: The client quickly eliminated ideas that wouldn’t resonate with shoppers using VAA (Visual Attention Analysis). VAA tested shopper visual path and attention. Concepts that did not draw attention toward the new product were eliminated. This saved money by testing fewer concepts in phase 2.
- Phase 2: Pinpoint Winning Strategy: The client conducted custom virtual store research project, for rigorous, in-depth testing and analysis to predict in-store outcomes of the leading 6 concepts. A clear winner was identified for the in-store location and shelf arrangement.
- Phase 3: Customize For Key Retail Partners:. In order to provide customer specific recommendations, additional tests were done in each of the key retailer virtual stores. Using rapid virtual testing, the client researched brand and category sales impact as well as shopper attitudes of the current vs. new recommendation.
- Phase 4: Presentation & Sell-In: The category management team met with the retail executive and shared compelling sales and shopper insights gathered with VAA and virtual research. Data and insights was accompanied by virtual store walk-throughs on an immersive screen which rivaled the mock store experience.
The Results
In-depth research, customer-centric insights and life-like simulation of the recommendations won our client a 100% retailer execution. Concepts were validated 36 weeks into the launch when the actuals were found to be within .1 share point of the test results. Our client saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and many months that would have gone to mock store set ups, creating 17 different concepts to test, bringing in study participants, and then waiting for real-world results before understanding the true ROI.
