The client is a multinational food company, operating in both food service and retail. 

As an input to their long-term strategic planning process, our client was looking to create a channel agnostic (retail and food service) global consumer need-based occasion framework to help the organization create a common language and be more effective and efficient with resources and communications. The framework was also created in the hopes of arming the organization with a competitive advantage by identifying whitespace opportunities. This work had to actively cultivate innovation that is scalable across geographies. 

Understanding consumer needs was critical in the development of the demand space framework. We started with a 3-day mobile-first consumption diary in 4 key countries and collected 53,695 consumption occasions to help identify micro need states and consumption occasions. We then conducted an online quantitative survey in the same 4 key countries focused on the last consumption occasion to validate the micro need states identified through the mobile diary. Through advanced analytics, the micro need states were grouped into macro need states.

As a next step, the framework was validated among another 7 countries to develop a global macro need state framework with regional micro need states specific to each country. Dig developed impactful profiles and led numerous working sessions to socialize and embed our new consumer understanding across a diverse stakeholder set. Results were also included in an online interactive dashboard that allows key stakeholders to access key information about their consumers. 

Primary and secondary target areas have been identified within each region, allowing the team to build a customer-centric strategy that illuminated opportunities to clarify the competitive set and identify areas to grow each brand in the portfolio.