Qualitative Research and ROI

It’s rare that we find out what happens with the insights we deliver after a project is completed. But recently Brian Myers, Associate Partner, and a client at Prophet, a brand strategy company, shared a story with me that stopped me in my tracks.

A year ago we collaborated on a project for Joint Juice after it acquired the Premier Nutrition brand.

We set up a mock store shelf fully stocked with the major brands of nutritional beverages. For three days we conducted individual interviews where we invited respondents to “shop” and then talk about their decision process. We also probed more generally into the role nutritional beverages play in their lives.

The result was a vivid picture of key consumer segments, along with rich details about the motivations driving their connection with the category. The clients came out of the project with a clear understanding of consumers in the category.

The sales team at Premier Nutrition took these results and ran with them. To date they have successfully placed the Premier Nutrition brand on the shelves of two national grocery chains, effectively increasing business by orders of magnitude. All this was achieved on the strength of the qualitative research insights we delivered.