Category and brand research for Lassie

Eating habits of consumers are changing. Think of superfoods, the rise of meal boxes, and legumes as an alternative to meat are also on the rise. Lassie wants to meet the changing consumer needs and has responded well to this by introducing grains alongside rice and combining healthy mixes with rice and grains.

Lassie is so much more than rice, and the brand also wants to remain visible and communicate in the right tone that suits today's and tomorrow's consumers.

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Research objective: to verify Lassie's brand positioning.

To grow and prepare for the future, Lassie started working with a branding agency on a new positioning. And to make sure that this sharpened positioning was correct, Lassie turned to Blauw.

We help them check through category and brand research whether the new route they have in mind for the brand is the right one. This type of research is particularly useful for checking whether your brand's new positioning/repositioning is in line with what consumers expect and want. Combined research is the ideal approach for this type of issue.

In this case, we are using community research for exploratory research, followed by qualitative research with focus groups. With this, we determine which consumer needs can still be met and the relevance of Lassie to these needs.

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Phase 1: Community research

A community study, allows us to explore multiple themes that teach us about consumer use and behavior in general and with respect to the categories of rice, grains and legumes.
Community research provides the opportunity to explore broadly and hear from many angles how people think about and interact with different product categories. By following community members in their home situations, we are close to actual behavior. Other benefits of the community include:

• Fast startup & flexible in scheduling and demand generation
• Qualitative insights based on a reasonably large group
• Budget-friendly form of research
• Different methods of research (topic, challenge, questionnaire, diary, poll) within one platform.
• Lots of room for interaction and spontaneous reactions resulting in innovative insights
• Agile working: query can be adapted to Lassie's information needs

The purpose of the first phase of research is to identify the current home situation.

• How does one eat now?
• What place do rice, grains and legumes have in the diet?
• How do consumers look for inspiration (recipes)?
• What do they consider important in that?

Phase 2: Focus groups - finding the depth around the brand/positioning issue

Next, the focus groups take place. Here the focus is on how people view the Lassie brand and the new positioning is tested.

The purpose of the second phase of research is to better understand how people view the Lassie brand. How is Lassie described and what is it associated with? We also test the new positioning and different ideas to support this positioning.

The advantage of this approach is the group dynamic. In the focus group, we provide both individual opinions by having a response written down first, followed by discussion.

Benefits of focus groups:

• Efficiency: engaging with multiple people for a longer duration allowing multiple topics to be discussed. Ideal when exploring a broad topic.
• Creativity: the group dynamic brings respondents to new ideas and stimulates creativity. Ideal for evaluation and sharpening of concepts.

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