Improving product appeal to target consumer

Challenge

Our client wished to launch their meal replacement shake product, already successful in the European market, in the UK. They needed to understand the UK consumer’s view of the product and how the shake and the brand messaging might be improved.  Within this, it was critical to understand whether ‘sustains energy’ or ‘slow energy release’ claims would motivate consumers.

Solution

We applied our Product Labs™ solution investigating both chocolate and vanilla shakes amongst category users.

Respondents trialed the products at home ahead of joining moderated face to face Product Labs™ sessions.

Sessions explored concept, expectations generated by the product description, relevance of claims, and generated sensory design guidelines for the ideal product across appearance, aroma, flavour and texture/mouthfeel.

Outcome

Several areas for recipe improvement were identified across all sensory modalities to improve product appeal to the UK consumer.

Sensory design guidelines were then applied to drive the next stages of the NPD process forward.

The original energy claims were not viewed as relevant; consumers were more attracted to claims of product function and benefits.