Avery-Dennison Labels

• Situation: Largest label maker in the world needed to have a way to maintain sales of existing products and promote value-added products with no advertising budget except in-store promotions.
• Insights: Retail customers asked Avery to make the label section more shoppable. Since this section represents a significant profit center for office supply stores, they welcomed the change.
• Approach: U&I worked as the consumer understanding component of the team with their package design firm and in-house marketing group to develop the 24 linear-foot display with more compelling packaging and communication. Getting It!® components of Knowledge Mapping and three rounds of In-context, in-depth interviewing were used.
• Results: Innovatively redesigned packaging allows for more beneficial consumer experience. Package design also facilitates ease of stocking, sell-up potential, and new product placement. Noted as an industry and company success. Retailers have found that this approach has lead to greater sales in all categories and has addressed the ease-of-shopping need.

Chocolate Reddi-wip

• Situation: Another product had been under extensive development and testing and failed during BASES. It was important to provide a revenue stream for the lost project. New product had to be incremental.
• Insights: This product had been introduced twice before and had failed to meet retailers' expectations.
• Approach: Used Getting It!® components of in-context, in-depth interviewing and several waves of Rapid Insight Testing to create a strategy and product that had one of the highest CLT/HUT scores ever found by the company. The project was completed in less than four weeks.
• Results: The product so well connected with consumers at an emotional level that it produced more than four times the sales predicted by BASES. It was noted as a brilliant success during year-end product reviews in major food trade and business journals as well as with executives and in the annual report. The research identified unexpressed uses of the product that were used several years later by the company's advertising agency to continue the product promotion.

H. J. Heinz

• Situation: Product development department lacked a strategic products research function.
• Insights: New manager who headed up the function was a seasoned professional who knew that many of the recommended practices for product development research had limitations and wanted to create a successful new model program.
• Approach: U&I created a customized approach to in-house innovation called an Insight Group. U&I supplied the general design which was then customized for the client's needs for rapid, cost-effective product and product experience understanding.
• Results: Originally developed in 2000, Insight Groups are considered one of the foundation tools for both product development and marketing. It is quoted as being the single largest knowledge tool within the company.

Fortune 15 Global Company

• Situation: A new product was going to have to be launched due to government requirements. There was conflicting company information about how to inform the consumer about the change so that they would not be concerned and would stay connected to the brands.
• Insights: It was felt that there needed to be multiple approaches to this situation for the Customer Contact department. The concern was a loss of consumers to the entire category. Prior to our work, there was limited knowledge in this large company regarding this question.
• Approach: Implemented steps 1– 4 of the Getting It!® system (Knowledge Mapping, Value Diagramming, In-context Interviewing, and Rapid Insight Testing). Project completed within four weeks.
• Results: Rapid use of the approach provided for key understanding of the issues which allowed executives and several groups within the organization to plan their strategy quickly and with thoroughness. The customer satisfaction issues were managed successfully when the product was brought to market. Insights were credited with helping manage the situation to maintain and, in fact, grow market share. Business today continues at multiple billion dollar level.

Global Beverage Company

• Situation: A technology was starting to be used in this industry and the company needed to understand the possible length and depth of this trend and the impact it might have on their businesses and the industry.
• Insights: While the technology was not “new,” it appeared to lack a depth of consumer-based knowledge and appeared to be industry, expert driven.
• Approach: Getting It!® components of an abbreviated Knowledge Map (unnecessary to be extensive due to the lack of knowledge in the subject) and in-depth, in-context research shaped by the Value Diagram.
• Results: The research indicated that this would not be a fast-moving trend, that the type of consumer response would be slow and that the trade-off of moving toward the technology was not worth the loss in consumer reaction. This work was done in 2002 and has proven highly accurate to date. Company directors credit this research with cost avoidance of $100 million per year.

Communications Benefits and Segmentation of Snack Foods:
Case Study of Olives Using Conjoint Analyses (pdf)

For more information on The U&I Group's studies, please contact Hollis.