Case Study
The Power of Dining Missions and Live Look-Ins to Deep Dive into Consumers’ Experiences
overview
Our client, a global food manufacturer, wanted to better understand consumers’ attitudes and usage when it comes to ordering protein from casual and fine dining restaurants. Additionally, they wanted to understand how those consumers use this specific protein at home, with particular emphasis on the jobs to be done for protein, the retailers shopped, and the cuts used. The overall goal of this research was for our client to develop playbooks for their top restaurant accounts that provide specific insights on their own customers, as well as general foundational insights among other customers. Given the long-standing partnership with C+R (and knowing the robust toolbox of innovative methods we can employ), they decided that we would be the perfect partner to meet this goal.
THE PROBLEM
Need to dive deep into the world of protein to enhance partnership with key restaurant accounts
Our food manufacturer client needed to understand consumers’ attitudes and usage of protein– both away from home (at casual and fine dining restaurants) and in-home. The primary purpose of this research was to develop insights and strategy playbooks for their top restaurant accounts so that they can develop strategies and tactics to best meet their customers’ needs. The research was comprehensive and covered topics such as protein ordering tendencies, cut preferences, occasions for ordering protein, confidence levels, the importance of meal components, interest in new cuts, and the impact of claims on decision-making.
OUR APPROACH
Start with Qual to Deep Dive into the Category and Pave the Way for Successful Quant
We wanted to start with immersive qualitative so that we could fully understand the category, including consumer language, development of attributes, and hypotheses to test in the quant phase. C+R’s qualitative team conducted an immersive online asynchronous discussion with thirty consumers for 2 weeks to give consumers an opportunity to visit restaurants and cook specific proteins at home.
The online discussion included dining missions in which participants captured two specific protein dining occasions via dining journals. The journals captured context around the occasion (who, what, when, why, expectations, and emotions), the dining experience (pain points and delighters), and post consumption (satisfactions, needs fulfilled). To bring the occasion to life, participants captured photos and videos as well as written descriptions of their experiences – all in the moment.
In addition, a few participants were selected for Live Look-Ins™ following each dining mission and in-the-moment during an at-home occasion. The Live Look-Ins are brief webcam interviews offering an up-close look at the consumer experience, immersing the client team into the dining mission, with particular emphasis on understanding motivations, delighters, and pain points, and to share their perceptions of specific protein products in the context of their dining and at-home cooking missions. Client team members had a chance to send chat messages to our moderator to ask their own ad hoc questions.
The result
Dining Missions and Live Look-Ins – a Hit!
The results of the qualitative phase gave our client an in-depth look into the attitudes and occasions for specific protein products at home and dining out, and provided great information to develop the quant survey, and was also used for follow-up activation workshops. Our client loved how immersive their experience was while conducting qualitative research online with us. The addition of both asynchronous dining and cooking missions, and live engagement during our moderated Live Look-Ins, gave our client a “front row” seat into the consumer experience.
proven experience
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