ZS Demand Landscape helps snack food manufacturer satisfy more cravings

When a company’s portfolio includes multiple brands, it can be a challenge to determine which brands are best positioned for growth—and which ones are inadvertently competing against each other. ZS worked with the snacking division of a food manufacturer to better understand consumer demand and develop strategies to grow its portfolio through real-time, actionable data.

We met this challenge by using our proprietary ZS Demand Landscape framework and a new way of thinking about consumer demand based on the jobs theory developed by Harvard economist Clay Christensen. Jobs theory holds that people don’t buy products. They hire them to achieve progress in a specific situation. This shifted the company’s focus from a traditional product-centric strategy (“What can we offer the market?”) to a consumer-centered strategy (“How can we meet the needs of consumers?”). By understanding what jobs consumers are purchasing products for, the food manufacturer could make smarter and more data-based decisions about how to invest across its portfolio.

The challenge

During a period of rapid growth, the food manufacturer launched several new product lines, but did not first consider the role those products played in its portfolio. Despite the investment, cannibalization between brands competing for the same consumer jobs meant that the launches fell flat. The manufacturer’s innovation and strategy teams lacked clarity about what to build or buy next as part of its pipeline efforts.

The solution

ZS fielded an in-depth study to over 10,000 consumers, capturing everything they ate, their needs and attitudes toward eating, the details of their consumption occasions and how satisfied they were with their chosen brands. Our approach included a proprietary algorithm that determined the vulnerability level of each product the consumers purchased. Data included the top benefits consumers sought from a product, details on why consumers prefer certain snacks for certain occasions and of course which products consumers “hired” for a specific purpose. All of this was combined with third-party volumetric point-of-sales data for an accurate read on the dollar opportunity in each job to be done.

We then worked closely with the manufacturer’s multifunctional consumer insights, brand, strategy, innovation and sales teams to develop a single consumer landscape framework that identified consumer demand across segments and demand moments. These insights showed which brands performed well for their given jobs and where others could fill unmet needs. This knowledge empowered the company to either “fire” brands that had no competitive standing or reallocate legacy brands to jobs with opportunities to capture unsatisfied consumers.

ZS Demand Landscape helped brand leaders identify their current positioning and growth opportunities. It pinpointed where consumer needs were unmet today and which incumbents were most vulnerable to replacement. Critically, it showed how to replace these incumbents by better meeting consumer needs. ZS built a custom digital ZS Demand Landscape, an interactive web-based tool that made this data easy to analyze. This tool empowered the client’s leaders to fully visualize consumers’ needs and project the investment required to grow.

By bringing to life jobs-centric demand theory, ZS Demand Landscape reframed how the food manufacturer invests and goes to market with its brands.

The impact

The partnership between ZS and the food manufacturer revealed new white space opportunities for its key brands and innovation avenues worth up to $100 million. Both legacy and newly launched brands developed strategies to better communicate how the brands help consumers achieve specific objectives (such as satisfying an indulgence or being easy to eat on-the-go), positioning the products as more focused and competitive.

The digital version of ZS Demand Landscape also proved useful far beyond the life of this project. It allowed the client to refresh the data and insights to continue to meet future trends well past the end of ZS’s official engagement.

Once ZS Demand Landscape clarified the company’s portfolio strategy, the food manufacturer was able to make more-informed decisions and optimize its investments, from where to spend marketing dollars, to what product renovations and innovations were needed to target portfolio white-space opportunities.

ZS Demand Landscape helped pave paths to new revenue for the company, as it helped the organization align with a clear target in a specific market worth $130 billion in annual snacking spend. By giving each brand a clear and distinct job to perform for different moments that customer segment experiences, the company had the opportunity to dramatically expand its current $12 billion in sales to those consumers, unlocking billions of dollars in new growth in that market alone.