The beverage market is massive and dynamic, filled with iconic brands and up-and-coming challengers. And micro trends are emerging what feels like daily. It was critical for Sarah Zangler, who leads insights for the Beverage portfolio at Kraft Heinz, to understand consumers behavior—meeting them not just at-shelf, but in the moments when they decide what to drink. That’s why Kraft Heinz set out to deepen their understanding of consumer behavior and choice drivers through the lens of moments that matter. In partnership with our consulting team, Kraft Heinz’s beverage team developed a robust framework to identify, quantify, and ideate against key “demand moments”—those pivotal points in time when consumers make beverage choices.

When the Kraft Heinz beverage team took a look into their brand portfolio, they recognized several key challenges:

• Overlapping Consumer Needs: Consumers have access to so many beverage options at any given time (i.e. water, coffee, functional beverages). Sarah’s team needed an in-depth understanding of why consumers were reaching for different beverages at different times, optimizing the portfolio to suit.
• The Threat of Cannibalization: Numerous Kraft Heinz brands were at risk of cannibalizing each other by targeting the same consumer jobs without adequately differentiating themselves in the retail space.
• Ideation Fatigue: The team felt “tapped out”, with many brand teams coming up with the same ideas and workshopping in circles. They wanted inspiration for fresh thinking, with guardrails and clear occasion moments to ideate against.

Kraft Heinz embarked on a comprehensive exploration of demand moments through a combination of qualitative discovery, quantitative research, and trends-led ideation. A key focus was to incorporate inspiration at the right moments throughout the project, driving expansive thinking and comparative focus at meaningful times.

“We had been approaching innovation through the lens of what our business was capable of manufacturing. We needed to integrate the voices of the consumer and the market into our innovation strategy, which this process championed.”

Step 1: Deep Qualitative Exploration

Using mobile ethnography, the team captured over 240 unique beverage moments that consumers experienced daily. This unobtrusive, agile method allowed Kraft Heinz to capture decisions in-the-moment to feed into their quantitative research.

Step 2: Quantitative Validation

Following qualitative insights, the team moved into quantitative validation, uncovering 86,000 beverage occasions. Through the research findings, they were able to narrow focus down to 9,300 occurrences that aligned with their beverage offering. Ultimately, the team honed in on 9 distinct demand moments, which were essential to understanding how the portfolio fit within consumers’ day-to-day lives.

“The insights from Dig allowed us to size up the moments, understand where some areas were bigger opportunities for us versus smaller… it helped us tell a story from a business perspective.”

Step 3: Trends-Led Ideation

Cross-functional teams at Kraft Heinz participated in a 2-day workshop that was anchored in 5 demand moments.

Day 1 of the workshop introduced key trends shaping the non-alcoholic drinks market, pairing thoughtful trend exploration with each demand moment. On day 2, teams workshopped new beverage ideas that aligned with each of the 5 demand moments. This approach reignited creativity across cross-functional teams, helping them generate hundreds of new ideas that had true reasons for being.

“We had our entire team in a room for two full days, which is a huge investment…but it paid off. The fact that we had them apply demand moments as a framework immediately made them stick…and I think that’s why we’re still speaking the same language months and months later.”

Based on this body of work, Kraft Heinz identified pivotal insights:

• Diverse Needs: Adult consumers and children have notably different occasions and motivations behind beverage choices, necessitating tailored approaches for each segment.

“Having Dig’s expertise on board made it easier to segment our audience and understand these differences deeply. It was a game-changer for us.”

• Innovation Opportunities: Certain moments identified as white spaces revealed potential new product directions, such as incorporating non-alcoholic beverage options and fun, novelty-driven products aimed at children. And crucially, the research demonstrated why the beverage team did not have a right to play or stretch into a handful of initially tempting white spaces.

• Aligning Strategy Across Teams: Cross-functional collaboration proved key to sharing insights and building distinct brand plans, allowing Kraft Heinz to optimize their portfolio as a cohesive suite.

“The marketers and leaders are now asking, ‘What moment does this tie to?’ It’s music to our ears to see this level of involvement and focus.”

These 5 demand moments are now the North Star for the beverage team as they consider future brand planning and innovation.

1. New Product Launches: As a direct result of the insights, Kraft Heinz launched innovative products such as Capri Sun’s Moon Punch—coinciding with the lunar eclipse—and Crystal Light Mixology, which caters to the emerging trend of moderation in beverage consumption.

2. Focused Campaigns: By understanding each demand moment and it’s reason for being, Kraft Heinz improved their marketing creative and copy, translating complex consumer needs into focused campaigns that resonate with target audiences.

3. Sustained Momentum: This ongoing collaboration fostered a culture of innovation within Kraft Heinz, enabling teams to speak a common language and collaborate more effectively across departments.

“Demand moments are our North Star and we’re all using that language… and it’s something that we’ve been able to put to practice really quickly but also lean on for future planning.”

By grounding innovation in the demand moments, Kraft Heinz has reinvigorated its beverage portfolio, developed clear swim lanes for each portfolio brand, inspired expansive thinking, and built a future-focused framework that supports exciting innovation for years to come.