Quaker Big Chewy Case Study
Industry: Food & Beverage
Service: ITG EXCITE®
Recapture innovation mojo by focusing on what really matters.
Quaker Chewy needed to get its innovation plan back on track after previous launches struggled in the marketplace. In partnership with ITG and a team of Creative Consumers® associates, they sharpened their concepts, clarified the consumer benefit, and created a stronger path forward.
The Challenge
Quaker Chewy had granola bar concepts with real potential, but the messaging wasn’t connecting with their target audience. Previous launches had struggled in market, and the team suspected the problem wasn’t the product itself, but how they were talking about it. Consumer-facing language was rooted in internal assumptions rather than the words, emotions, and desires real snackers actually responded to. The gap between a good idea and a great concept was a communications problem — and closing it required getting consumers into the room.
What Success Looked Like
Create more compelling granola bar concepts grounded in consumer needs, then convert those improved concepts into stronger in-market performance.
How We Got There
Quaker Chewy partnered with Ideas To Go to optimize several granola bar concepts with appealing descriptions and single-minded benefits. The team came in ready to explore the consumer problem, and ITG brought 15 Creative Consumers® associates into the process to help identify snacking insights, explore product opportunity questions, and develop meaningful positioning statements.
Together, the Quaker and ITG team used creative imagery and consumer-led discussion to shape a stronger concept foundation. That process produced Quaker Chewy’s first BASES-ready concept in years.
The Results
The winning product and positioning, Quaker Big Chewy Sweet & Salty Granola Bars, went on to exceed target in market. The team also changed how it worked: by focusing on consumer-based insights and benefits, it narrowed the number of concepts taken to testing and improved its success rate from 0% to 38%.
0% to 38%
Concept testing success rate improvement
15
Creative Consumers® associates involved
First BASES-ready concept in years
Output of the optimization process
“We partnered with Ideas To Go and their Creative Consumers® associates to help us identify motivating needs and desires...our concept testing success rate went from zero to 38%. One thing I like to tell my team is, Ideas To Go—and I truly believe this—will make a concept as good as it can be.”
— Project leader Doug Healy, then Senior Manager of Innovation Architecture and Snacking at Quaker
In 2014, Doug shared his team's success story at The Market Research Event conference.
This project used ITG EXCITE® — Communications that begin and end with your audience.
Your Message Is Only as Strong as the Words Behind It
If your product isn’t connecting, the concept might not be the problem. The language might be. ITG EXCITE® puts the right consumers in the room to help you find words that don’t just describe your product, they make people feel it.