Beverage Marketing and Research, Case Study Example

Successful brands send a consistent message to the consumers through various communication channels including product packaging. Consumers often have particular perceptions about brands and any confusing message may hurt their dedication to the brand. The product packaging doesn’t only help create brand perceptions but also provides a distinctive appearance in a sea of competing products. While it is not uncommon for brands to redesign their packaging in order to achieve more modern image, the packaging redesign should still reflect the brand’s unique personality and provide it an instant recognition. This is why any packaging redesign should be preceded by a comprehensive market research to better understand consumers’ perceptions of the brand as well as their opinions on a potential packaging redesign. Packaging redesign will be a major initiative and any mistakes will not only be costly in financial terms but may also lead to loss of consumer loyalty.

The primary research should be done through consumer focus groups around the country and market research surveys through an independent research agency. Focus groups will help us obtain the qualitative information that surveys often fail to yield. The focus groups encourage the participants to freely express themselves including both opinions and suggestions. If research surveys are carried out by our marketing department, their bias may affect the survey design. An independent research agency will not have any conflict of interest, thus, their marketing research may be more objective.

The secondary research tools that could be employed are social media such as Facebook and experiments with proposed packaging in limited markets. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter could be utilized to interact with the consumers and seek their opinion on proposed packaging through Facebook surveys. A significant proportion of the company’s consumers are users of social media such as Facebook which will provide the company with a cheap avenue to test their initial reaction to proposed packaging as well as seek their ideas. Similarly, introduction of new packaging in limited markets will be a less-costly mistake should the consumers’ enthusiasm turn out to be lower than expectations. Moreover, even the best-designed marketing research may not always yield the right answer, thus, experiment in limited markets will offset the shortcomings of other marketing research tools to some extent.