Case Studies

A leading sauce brand sought to refine its brand’s positioning to improve product differentiation and to sharpen the effectiveness of its marketing, most notably against the category leader.

Keen utilized its consumer-driven Brand Value Maximizer™ (BVM) tool to determine brand’s key brand advantages (powerful, positive & unique brand associations) relative to competitors. Furthermore, Keen’s BVM tool was used to pinpoint the strengths & dimensions of the brand that most drove purchase intent among key consumers.

This analysis of brand strengths and drivers of consumer behavior combined with the direct, unfiltered language of consumers (captured via verbatims) provided Keen with rich, analytic-driven insight for a distinctive, results-oriented re-positioning of the brand.

A leading creamer brand had successfully launched a new product line within the broader coffee category.  Given this marketplace success, a strong competitive response across need states, flavors, price points was expected from large category players, such as Nestle and Hood.  Our client sought to create a multi-brand strategy to mitigate this competitive risk and to build a broader, more sustainable proposition across need states and pricing tiers.

Keen was tasked with developing a multi-brand approach that would maximize portfolio value – fill key consumer gaps and drive overall brand differentiation while minimizing overlap & cannibalization within the portfolio.

To accomplish this, Keen first developed an organizing framework for the category based on how consumers shop and where they give brands permission to compete.  Keen then examined how rivals compete and identified key market gaps across the price-value spectrum.  Based on this consumer and market insight, we developed a strategy for controlling the shelf – mapping current brand assets to key expansion areas as well as identifying the need for new brands in order to minimize cannibalization and brand dilution.

Keen then developed a migration roadmap that identified where critical investments were required, such as new brands and packaging, and prioritized focus on the mainstream segment. For each opportunity area, Keen specified key operational requirements, such as aggressive innovation and sustainable marketing investment, and success enablers, such as licensing and private labels.

Finally, Keen provided a candid assessment of the risks and rewards to help our client make a fact-based, clear-eyed decision on its strategy and best path forward.

A player in the coffee category sought to expand its presence in the coffee aisle through innovation into new segments.  The company saw strong overall category growth with multiple opportunities for differentiated products.  But as a smaller, more complementary player in the category, the company also knew that it needed a highly selective and focused path forward.

Keen was tapped to help the company to determine the right path with the highest likelihood of success.  Keen began by identifying high potential category segments.  We then developed a brand map, providing an assessment of the client’s current brand portfolio and its ability to stretch into new segments. Keen then evaluated the company’s ability to “win” in each category segment based on internal capabilities, required investment and category segment dynamics.

Additionally, Keen leveraged its RRBi innovation methodology to prioritize category segments within the coffee aisle and provide specific launch considerations for each recommended segment.  As part of the prioritization process, Keen identified ‘fool’s gold’ categories to avoid – those opportunities with highly attractive growth rates but with high competitive intensity and a mismatch with the client brand’s credentials and key equities.

Finally, Keen provided a 5 year roadmap for the company’s entry into and build-out of a new aisle of the store.

With the growth of connected devices in the home and technology support services like Best Buy’s Geek Squad, a large media company sought to evaluate and launch an offering in this category.  As envisioned the service would offer residential customers remote and onsite technical support and home theater design/installation.

A current Keen partner was tasked with building the business plan from scratch.  The process began with research to develop a deep understanding of the economics and operational requirements of the proposition that included identifying the partners to “white label” certain aspects of service delivery. Consumer research was conducted to understand drivers of choice and how the proposition could be differentiated in an increasingly cluttered and competitive space.  The value proposition was then validated in concept research, where concept acceptance significantly outperformed large incumbent competitors like Geek Squad, AT&T and Verizon.

Once the business case and proposition were secured, a launch plan, including a marketing plan and advertising support, was developed and support and alignment gained from the client’s senior management team.  From there, the new service was successfully launched – going from “blank slate” idea to launched service in just eight months.  The service is now a large, growing, sustainable business line for the company.

A large national insurance company believed that it had a significant opportunity to help its broker channel drive more sales and retention among small to midsize businesses by creating a better, more unique purchase experience.

In order for that to take place, the company believed that it needed more direct insight into its customers’ top pain points and unmet needs.  The company sought outside expertise to help it think strategically and systematically about the types of new service offerings that could enhance the channel’s retention and acquisition success rates.

The insurance company turned to Keen to develop a robust fact-base for channel concept design, focused on uncovering buying behavior in the current purchase funnel.  Keen used the research evidence to conceptualize distribution design ideas across a spectrum of customer needs – from customers’ challenges with finding, evaluating, and buying the right benefits plans to managing the overall benefits program effectively and efficiently.

Keen developed an initial set of ideas for new service offerings, which then led to a series of co-creation sessions directly with customers and company executives to focus on a smaller, more specific set of service ideas.  Finally, Keen facilitated work sessions directly with broker partners to determine and refine the top ideas for a pilot program by the channel. 

 A new non-profit organization in female reproductive health was in need of a focused strategic plan to create a self-sustaining organization, such that it could be operational without donor funding at the end of five years.  The organization’s innovative hybrid business model looked to generate profit in developed-world countries, including the U.S. and Europe to subsidize pricing in those developing-world countries where women were most in need of reproductive healthcare products, such as contraception options.

Investment was necessary to activate the hybrid model in the developed world and begin generating profit.  The first challenge for Keen was to help the company develop a focused plan that would prioritize investment -initially from donors-on the company’s products and markets that could generate the most profit over a short-term period of one to two years. 

The second part of the challenge was to determine how much of the market could the non-profit subsidize without “breaking” the model, but still result in a “break-even” financial scenario.  The plan had to balance market need with the economics/sustainability of the hybrid model.  With this objective as its guide, Keen developed a roll-out plan for distribution of the subsidized product based on the profit generated by these developed world countries.

The client is well on way to profitability, showing significant profit growth in developed world countries such as the US and UK.