Need Gaps & Brand positioning research

Positioning / Need gap research helps marketeers identify overt/latent need gaps and arrive upon brand positioning opportunities. This research consists of two different modules and is mostly conducted in phases – Base research & Positioning research. The aim of the base research is to holistically map the category to arrive upon current need gaps – both explicit & implicit in nature. This research will form a basis for arriving upon different positioning routes that can be explored. The next phase - Positioning research, will then explore and evaluate the various possible routes that have been arrived upon previously. It's best to adopt a hybrid technique – which is a mix of qualitative & quantitative in this type of research.

Communication development

After positioning has been developed for a brand, research can help in developing communication. Usually, this is done with qualitative research methodologies – FGDs or IDIs depending on category and other logistics related aspects. This stage needs stimuli which can be checked in research and from thereon, cues provided for developing communication for the brand. Various types of stimuli which can be used for this exercise range from skeletal ideas to anamatics, narramatics or fully developed scrips. Communication research assesses the stimuli on 4 key dimensions of evaluation:-

        Appeal

        Message delivery and relevance of message

        Uniqueness of execution

        Persuasiveness

And thereby assess if the communication idea will impact intention to purchase the brand. Research can be done at any level of stimuli development and can provide cues towards fine tuning the communication content.

Product development

AZ Research Partners brings in expertise in using consumer feedback for product development. We have developed various in-house tools and techniques for this process. Primarily product developmental research needs to be done as sequential recycling exercise. In this we have experience in recruiting panels which are put together almost 8 to 10 times on alternate days. Alternately, product developmental research can also be done with independent rounds of monadic research.

For certain products like tea, liquor etc, we believe that actual product development work should be done with the consumers and blenders both actively participating in the process. AZ Research Partners comes with experience of various types of product developmental research across categories. We also come with a fresh perspective and are willing to bring in learnings from across categories to arrive upon the best methodology for your product development needs.

Potential Estimation

Post the brand mix for a new brand is developed, marketeers use this type of market research to estimate how the product / service is likely to do in the market. This research provides insights into the kind of demand the product / service can garner.. This research adopts quantitative techniques with statistically significant sample sizes to arrive upon possible market share the product / service can garner, assuming certain market variables to be constant. Additionally, it also answers questions like what profile of customers are likely to adopt the new product / service, at what price level would revenues be maximised, which geography / townclass is likely to accept the product / service most etc.We use probability based modeling to assess potential of a new product launch. Key outputs from potential estimation research are :

        Feedback to concept – level of appeal and high points

        VFM perceptions of the product concept

        % of triers the product will retain

        % of TG that will the buy in long run

        Estimated % of TG that will buy the brand corrected for planned awareness / distribution levels

AZ Research Partners have the capability and expertise to do potential estimation research across product categories. – contact@azresearch.in