In a slow economy it’s a tough market out there and competition for customers is fierce. But you know your business must grow to survive and thrive. What have you tried to differentiate your company in this market? Is gaining market share from your competitor important in the year ahead? A secret weapon to unlock your point of difference and competitive edge in the market is customer intimacy.
As part of illustrating the power of customer intimacy I want to share a brief case study. During my time at AB InBev I worked on a project to grow our share among 18-24 year old “Glam Girls”. In recent years the medium-priced wine category has been gaining share from the alcohol category among this target group, driven by 4th street box wine.
The brand in our portfolio currently playing in this space was Brutal Fruit, however it was not winning the battle. The Brutal Fruit team had launched a variant, Cranberry Rose, with a high alcohol % as a solution to gain share from box wine given that Brutal Fruit’s alcohol % was much lower than wine. This variant had however not succeeded in gaining volume from boxed wine and was attracting young males who were drinking it irresponsibly due to higher alcohol %. This was negatively impacting the brand image as a glamorous brand for younger women.
The brief was to go back to the drawing board and find a solution to take on box wine and gain share among Glam Girls. The first thing we did was go back and understand the Glam Girls context, when, where and how were they drinking box wine and what was the appeal.
We started by going back to all the data we had as well as doing immersions and spending time with these women in the occasions where they were drinking box wine. We understood that it was primarily drunk when girls were relaxing together and enjoyed sharing their stories, experiences, and their drinks! Drinking wine made them feel sophisticated and classy as they transitioned from teenagers into adulthood. They enjoyed the ritual of drinking out of wine glasses and sharing from one pack versus drinking out of a bottle.
After pouring over the data and spending time with women in this occasion, we used these insights to build a full value proposition that included communication of glamour and sparkle, that would make these women feel classy and included the ritual of drinking Brutal Fruit out of wine glasses. We designed packaging that was more sophisticated and developed a liquid with a flavour profile (as opposed to alcohol %) that was more closely aligned with wine.
It is now one of the best performing variants in the Brutal Fruit stable and has won several awards.
One of the biggest learnings to take out of this example is that when we think of winning market share or volume from our competitor, we always start with how we need to be better functionally, for example, the first variant launched focused on a higher alcohol % to be closer to that of wine. We need to get out and spend time with our customers, observing them and being curious as they use our products as there may be underlying drivers and motivations that are more important than just functional delivery.
A business exists to serve the needs of our customers. Some of these needs they do not even know they have and can’t always articulate it when you ask them. They require you to know what they want and need even before they know it!
Reach out to your coach to develop your specific customer insight plan as you build out your business, marketing, sales and or product strategy.