Global brand wins by putting consumers at the center of every decision
Impact by the numbers
A leading global product manufacturer found itself treading water as a tidal wave of new competitors—digital upstarts with deep pockets and low overhead—surfaced all at once, winning new consumers and accolades from the media.
Market disruption is an understatement; these emerging players flipped the traditional model on its head, introducing a whole new way of shopping. Had the company not taken bold moves when it did, guided by ZS, it risked the fate of other once-great brands that floundered due to “Uber-ization” of a product category.
The challenge
Solidly positioned as a trusted brand in a highly consolidated industry reliant on brick-and-mortar retailers, ZS’s client lacked an understanding of shoppers’ evolving preferences and fast-shifting market dynamics. Without visibility to what influences purchasing decisions, the brand missed opportunities to fully benefit from all selling channels, particularly brick-and-mortar retailing where its advantages eclipsed pure-play disruptor brands.
Because the consumer brand did not understand external threats, margin pressures or its own strengths and weaknesses, it was not equipped to craft an informed, long-term strategy. Market share leadership eroded as a result. The consumer brand needed to evolve overall marketing (direct and in conjunction with retail partners) along with its product portfolio go-to-market approach—from brand-first to a consumer-centric strategy.
The solution
The brand engaged ZS as its dedicated consumer insights and analytics team and partner in transformation to a culture that prioritizes data-driven decision-making.
ZS brought unprecedented rigor to consumer research and analytics to inform strategy and execution across business areas. The ongoing collaboration with ZS empowered the brand to engage with consumers across all channels, before and after purchase, in ways it had never done before.
Our multiyear partnership transformed the consumer brand from one that knew little about shoppers to a market leader that puts consumers at the center of virtually every decision. A new proactive go-to-market strategy replaced the previous “What’s on fire, now?” mindset.
ZS established a data insights ecosystem that reveals threats to address while highlighting new opportunities across marketing, omnichannel consumer engagement, brand and product development, retail operations, trade advertising and more.
Highlights included:
- A new growth strategy: ZS developed a deeper understanding of the needs, attitudes and behaviors that drive consumer decision-making in the brand’s category. This new intelligence, along with competitive metrics and a map of the shoppers’ decision journey fed a data-driven ecosystem the brand relied upon to sharpen messaging and enhance its offer strategy.
- A refined, streamlined, stronger product portfolio: After clearly defining its ideal consumer, the consumer brand revamped its product portfolio with confidence to align with that target buyer. For example, the brand was able to launch a new value tier product with optimized features and functions that prevented down-selling to consumers, moves that mitigated cannibalization risk and improved its profit margins.
- Optimized distribution: ZS tracked and analyzed retailer performance to identify new prospects that hadn’t been considered before but would make solid partners and drive profitability. To reinforce relationships with its most-valued partners, the brand developed a unique retailer support program coveted by other players eager for insights and interactive training they could not obtain elsewhere, least of all from anti-establishment digital upstarts.
The impact
The framework ZS built to understand consumers through all stages of their purchasing journey represented a turning point in how the consumer brand thought about its category and shoppers. New intelligence proved that some long-held beliefs were no longer valid. The client solidified its market leadership position with profits growing 10%, EBITDA growing 50% and sales via new direct channels growing by 60%.
The customer insights ecosystem ZS created and continues to refine today forms the foundation that the brand uses to make business decisions today, with data-driven assurance and certainty that demonstrates value to both the brand and its retail partners.