Choosing which personal care buyers to target in each market

The question

The central team needed one view of the category across four markets, with little recent research to build on.

Each local team needed something more practical: targets it could actually find and reach with its own budget and channels.

Our approach

We surveyed category buyers in all four markets, at a scale chosen so that smaller groups could still be read within every market.

The questionnaire was the same everywhere apart from the brands, so the markets could be compared like for like, and it sized the category in each market as well.

We built the segmentation top down and bottom up: one shared solution first, then each market checked for segments that behaved differently or were missing.

Software explored thousands of candidate solutions. We judged the strongest against success criteria agreed with the client at the start, and shaped the final one with the insight team, so the segments reflect what local teams can act on.

What the team came away with

The central and local teams came away with one segmentation they could all use, and a starting point for each market’s plan.

Each market had its own sizing, report and designed pen portraits of every segment, and a working session that took its local team through choosing targets and starting an activation plan.