"How you do" is sometimes even more important that "what you do!"

Task at hand…
At the time potato chips were a rare snack option and formed a small proportion (1%) of the overall macro-snack market.
The client wanted to develop a snack food to drive consumption and take the category higher in the context of other macro-snacks. For this, 4 high quality samples were developed to be tested to see if any of them were above to create a positive disposition. The difference in the 4 samples was minor.

Our approach…
We at Qualisys realized that the key to the success of this mammoth task lay in the methodology to be designed to unravel the insights. Testing the samples quantitatively would not yield the answer as consumers will be forced to search for differences in the product. Without telling the consumer what we were testing, we wished to get a realistic answer to whether those high quality samples were discernibly high quality or not?

8 extended focus group discussions lasting about 2-2.5 hours, with 6-7 respondents in sets of friends were conducted. Both males and females were involved in the discussions, ranging from 13-35 years of age. The trick here was to get the consumer in an informal setting so that realistic responses would follow. A floor seating arrangement was intentionally made to facilitate easy exchange of ideas in the natural settings. We initiated a very casual warm up to the conversation that ensued – even picking up anecdotes from our day to day lives. Special attention was paid to correspond the timing of the groups to the Indian snacking time. Consumers were served test samples along with other macro snacks. Another stratagem implemented here was that of disguised questioning- “So why don’t do you have some more of this? What can I pass you?”, etc. This helped us fathom those unaided responses by catching the respondent unawares and eliciting a true response.

The outcome…
Chips, a category which only a few decades ago was struggling to make inroads into the Indian snacking habit, today stands at the pinnacle of a phenomenal success. Nudging its way through the clutter of Indian traditions and habits, the fledgling category finally found a way to the Indian heart. And getting the product right was the 1st biggest challenge. And with all these efforts, we managed to get a product which was superior from the consumer point of view and not just the marketer’s point of view. Incidentally, none of the 4 samples passed the test.

Highlights…

The optimum mix of innovative techniques used to elicit the right range of responses from the consumers across various age groups. The settings including the floor seating arrangements, disguised questioning format, etc. were such that the consumers could easily voice their preferences, barriers towards warming up to the category, and give realistic responses to the 4 products tested..