CASE STUDIES

Testing consumer opinion: The “innocent” Story

In the summer of 1998, the guys behind “innocent” set up a stall at a small music festival selling smoothies. They posed the question to their customers: “do you think we should give up our day jobs and make these smoothies?” Two bins were set aside to capture customer feedback as the empty bottles were dispatched. Feedback was so positive that the founders decided to resign their jobs and commit full time to building the innocent brand.

From that early moment “innocent” embraced the notion that customer feedback was critical and that testing consumer feedback and engagement was critical for a successful product launch. An ethos that has continued throughout their rapid growth.

Virgin Trains “falling in love again”

Virgin Trains had wanted to communicate upgrades in their service. However, consumers were very much entrenched in their negative views.

Pre-testing was vital in ensuring that a positive message was taken out by consumers. Consumers first impressions of the ad were to completely ignore the message and, to focus instead, upon their own rather more negative impressions of Virgin Trains.

However, further analysis at the pre-testing stage based on consumers implicit response to the ad, uncovered the learning that the ad contained many positive messages.

Without the benefit of pre-testing it would be unlikely that the ad would have been broadcast.

Source: Eye Mind Research