The challenge.
Blue Diamond Almond Breeze was successfully established in the USA, where its growth had been built upon a combination of the health benefits associated with almonds and, importantly, an excellent taste that had helped it to supercede soy-based competitors. However, almond milk was largely unknown in the UK when Blue Diamond approached us to help pave the way for them to bring Almond Breeze across the Atlantic. They wanted clear evidence of a taste preference for Almond Breeze over the leading soy milk products amongst UK consumers in order to provide a strong rationale for supermarkets to stock this new range.
Our thinking.
We needed to use a quantitative methodology that would provide the robust evidence that Blue Diamond required, but that would also enable ordinary consumers to evaluate the products on various key dimensions in order to enable the product team to address any specific aspects that were hindering performance. The questionnaire and testing approach that we developed not only addressed this immediate issue, but also acted as a framework for a series of subsequent product studies that Blue Diamond used to help direct their NPD in this sector.
Almond milk was largely unknown in the UK when Blue Diamond approached us to help pave the way across the Atlantic.
Our response.
We used a hall-test methodology across two locations, with pre-recruited consumers who met the target audience profile. These respondents tasted products under carefully controlled conditions and scored each of them across key criteria before ranking them in order of preference. This approach both demonstrated the strength of performance across these various dimensions and clearly showed which was the preferred product.
Our research enabled Blue Diamond to quickly understand the UK potential for a range of new product concepts.
The result.
Almond Breeze was, indeed, clearly preferred over the leading soy competitor at that time, providing the clear consumer-based evidence Blue Diamond required to convince UK supermarkets to stock their range. Our subsequent series of further taste-test studies have helped Blue Diamond to build a bank of scoring data that has enabled them to quickly understand the UK potential for a range of new product concepts.
