Case Study:
Decision Path

Industry: CPG Brand
Audience: B2C
Product: Decision Path Z-IQ

CPG Brand

Our client is a small CPG brand developing a new line of products to compete in the hyper competitive healthy snacking category. While our client has been successful in the frozen food aisle, they are new to the Ready-To-Eat snack category.

Key Challenge

Lacking the huge marketing budgets of their Fortune 500 counterparts, the brand came to Zeitgeist Research to identify the core market dynamics and the messages that best resonate with those buyers.

In-Depth Interviews and
Custom Survey with Advanced Analytics

Because our client was new to the Ready-To-Eat snacking category, we conducted a series of In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) to better understand consumers’ perceptions of the category and inform the quantitative phase that would follow.

Using the insights from the qualitative IDIs, we developed a custom survey to identify who our brand’s most likely purchasers are, what factors are most likely to influence their purchase decision and where in the decision path they are most open to messaging. We then leveraged our advanced analytics capabilities to uncover deeper insights about category consumers from the quantitative data.

Using the survey data, we first applied a CHAID (Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detector) analysis to build a predictive model to describe specific customer groups (i.e. most likely to purchase in the category). CHAID uses predictor variables to split the sample into a series of subgroups that share similar characteristics. These subgroups allow for the prediction of group membership (what are the characteristics of the those who purchase the most from the category) as well as predicting the value of group membership at each split (how much do they purchase).

We then implemented a Decision Tree Regression Analysis to understand and define the hierarchy of decisions that lead to the purchase. In other words, which factors are most important to the consumer as they shop for healthy snacks?

Focus on Marketing at the Shelf

Based on our research, we recommended our client focus the development of the new line to appeal to the key segment of on-the-go, health-focused women who over-index on healthy, Ready-To-Eat snacks.

Knowing that consumers are purchasing these snacks on impulse and making their decision at the Point of Sale, we recommended to our client that they spend their limited marketing budget on packaging and POS assets that stand our and communicate the organic ingredients and digestive benefits the key segment is looking for in a Ready-To-Eat snack.