Sharpening a new yogurt’s concept routes before a quantitative test

The question

A food company had developed a new yogurt format for a market in Asia, and its first concept had been through an early quantitative screen.

Its global and local teams wanted sharper routes before the next test, each built on a benefit that mattered to people there. A test can only choose between the routes it is given, and every route had to make a promise the product, as it stood, could keep.

Our approach

Two kinds of buyer shaped the routes: people knowledgeable about nutrition, who could put a benefit into words, and mainstream buyers, who told us how far it would reach.

The promise and the product were developed together, with early prototypes tasted alongside the concepts and the client’s first concept kept in as a control, so every new route was read against what the teams already had.

The company’s global and local teams built the concepts with us, so each route reflected what the business could stand behind in that market.

What the team came away with

Sharper routes were ready for the quantitative test, each tied to a benefit and checked against the product.

The routes came in the local language with English back-translations, so global and local colleagues were reading the same concept in the words buyers would see.

The developers had product and pack guidance from the prototype tastings, and the teams a qualitative read on price to set beside the test. Every route was ready for the test with the product, the pack and the price question already in view.