Lamb Weston
How do you become a leading brand in a category?
Case information
This is a challenge faced by many organisations, including Lamb Weston. They are working on a new vision to put potato-based ‘finger food’ on the map.
The question
Lamb Weston’s goal is to become a leading brand in this relatively young and undefined finger food category. A strong positioning and a relevant and distinctive product range are essential to achieve this.
The challenge
Insight into the needs and behaviour of the target audience forms the basis for sustainable success. Lamb Weston understands this. As a foundation for its future growth, Lamb Weston wanted insight into:
- How consumers define the category
- Which products are consumed in which situations and by whom
- Which needs can be met (even better)
From this broad foundation, Lamb Weston can achieve a strong positioning and identify opportunities for product innovations.
The approach
Market research as the basis for the winning category plan
In close collaboration with Lamb Weston, we gained the necessary insight into the finger food category in various countries, both in-home and out-of-home. Amongst other methods, we used a combination of community and quantitative research.
The community research in our Consumer Insights Community provided Lamb Weston with in-depth insight into the who, what, where, and how questions. This phase yielded a definition of the category and a grouping of products within it. The community also provided inspiring storytelling that allows for a true understanding of the consumer.
The insights from the community research were subsequently validated through quantitative research. In doing so, we utilised implicit measurement methods such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and KANO.
This phase demonstrated the importance of the various outcomes with numerical substantiation. Furthermore, the quantitative research provided clarity on how insights are interconnected—for example, how needs can explain behaviour.
<span data-metadata=""><span data-buffer="">the result
Concrete tools for a strong and winning category plan for ‘finger food’
The category research provided tools for subsequent steps, enabling Lamb Weston to capture a prominent position in the ‘finger food’ category. Following in-depth analysis together with Lamb Weston, Blauw made recommendations for, amongst other things:
- The most important emotional and functional needs to be addressed
- The consumption moments that are most relevant to focus on
- The product directions that appeal most strongly to the consumer
Lamb Weston has since developed a category vision incorporating consumer insights, long-term trends, and category developments. This category vision is being translated into channel- and country-specific visions that form the basis for innovation, activation, and renovation of the portfolio.
In practice.
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