Challenge
A market leader in Performance Chemicals identified an opportunity to leverage their flagship brand to establish a foothold in the attractive Oil Stabilizers space. The Oil Stabilizer concept they initially developed lacked differentiation and had poor value perception relative to a very well entrenched competition. The concept needed to be repositioned not only to justify the development and launch of a superior initiative that has the potential to win but also to identify a stream of initiatives to support the brand’s leadership in the future.
Approach
We used our Concept Development approach with Fusion MethodologyTM a unique qualitative insight method. This included iterative analysis using one-on-one qualitative research, on-line discussion boards and agile product usage testing to generate a comprehensive analysis of Oil Stabilizers, and an assessment of the opportunity and its challenges. We identified concept differentiation as a key challenge for a market entry because going head-to-head against a well-entrenched competition was expected to be very costly from a marketing standpoint. To overcome this issue, we repositioned the concept to maximize superior performance and the value perception. The approach addressed all key elements of a powerful concept, including key benefit; point of distinction; impact on life; current belief; technical levers; and the visuals and demos needed as a reason to believe.
Results
We repositioned the concept behind the core benefit of oil stabilization with two key points of difference, moisture removal and reliable lubrication, which bridged the performance deficiencies of the two lead competitive brands. The Dual Action concept also provided a platform for the next generation All-in-One initiative which was slotted to further drive the initiative in the marketplace.
