Pursuing category captaincy with retailers
How Jet Import uses insights to guide retailer dialogue
“We came to Opeepl with a clear research idea, but after some in-depth conversations about our business challenges and expert suggestions by the Opeepl team we agreed to run a two-phase project to best meet our needs. Even though it extended the project timeline, the end solution was right for us”.
Yannick Vermeulen
Category Manager
The challenge
Getting the shelf space that matches consumer demand
Energy drinks is the fastest-growing soft drink category in Belgium and retailers were experiencing increasing out of stock issues due to energy drinks’ relatively small share of shelf-space.
To address this, Belgium’s distributor, Jet Import, planned to strengthen its dialogue with the category managers on the retail side but knew they had to earn the conversation
“We expect energy drinks to continue to be the fastest growing category in the next five years and to support that we need to have a closer dialogue with the retailers on shelf-layout,” explains Category Manager, Yannick Vermeulen.
The solution
Enabling closer dialogue with retailers
To establish a close dialogue with retailer category managers, Jet Import needed to show their expertise and relevance. This required insights on the soft drink categories in general and the energy drink category in particular:
“We came to Opeepl with a clear research idea, but after some in-depth conversations about our business challenges and expert suggestions by the Opeepl team we agreed to run a two-phase project to best meet our needs. Even though it extended the project timeline, the end solution was right for us,” shares Category Manager, Yannick Vermeulen.
Jet Import invited several agencies to pitch but Opeepl was chosen for showing “a better understanding of the business challenge and an agile and collaborative approach”, remembers Yannick Vermeulen, Category Manager.
Category Mapping
A category mapping study helps you understand how consumers view your product, to which category they associate it, what factors influence their purchasing decisions, and which shopping missions and needs the product fulfills. The knowledge and insights generated will empower you in negotiating your category’s shelf space with retailers and in strengthening your marketing campaigns.
Category Purchase Tree
A category purchase tree study helps you develop the most efficient and shopper-centric communications and strategies. With the gained insights and knowledge, you will be able to build a purchase decision tree and understand the ever-changing shopping decisions (such as planned or unplanned and in store or e-commerce purchases) for your products/services and for your competitors’.
The research
Understanding the category and shoppers’ purchase decision tree
The project consisted of a category mapping and a category decision tree analysis. Both studies were conducted in Belgium with 1,500 respondents per round. Respondents were recruited using Opeepl’s proprietary Dynamic Sampling technology.
The category mapping consisted of nine questions mixing open and closed questions targeting soft drink consumers. The results from the category mapping research then guided the questionnaire design for the category purchase tree survey to ensure quality and relevance of the insights. This survey included two rounds of MaxDiff questions ensuring consumers’ preferences were uncovered.
We assisted Jet Import end-to-end, including consulting on their research and questionnaire design, translations, scripting, sampling, and reporting.
“The collaboration with Opeepl has been very successful. Weekly project meetings made sure we kept all stakeholders in the loop and regularly followed-up on any questions and reflections. This also allowed for fresh learnings being applied throughout the project,” says Category Manager, Yannick Vermeulen.
The outcome
Insights that open doors
Following the analysis of the research findings, Jet Import decided on a prioritized list of conclusions and recommendations to build the closer relationship with retailers:
“We are pursuing a position of category captaincy, and we are able to do so now because we have gained valuable insights and recommendations for both soft drinks and energy drinks,” says Category Manager, Yannick Vermeulen, and continues: “for instance, we have learned that consumers regard energy drinks more functionally than emotionally. This opens the door for discussing shelf layout and how different brands are grouped. We look forward to exploring these perspectives further with the retailers”.