The Situation
Giving an Established Brand New Life
A leading beverage company recently tasked our media agency partner with driving sales for its energy drink line. If you’re familiar with this market, you’d know that the energy drink universe has always been fiercely competitive.
That’s mainly because the market is somewhat niche, and the drinks are relatively expensive compared to most non-alcoholic products in the beverage category.
In this world, a successful brand launch can be like sampling the taste of victory. But, growing market share for an established beverage requires a different battle plan.
The Challenge
The Target Audience Wasn’t Sipping
While Millennials and Generation Z are typical energy drink consumers, recent advertising campaigns aimed at these groups weren’t resonating with the audience, and the brand in question was steadily losing market share to its competitors.
The agency needed to understand whether the initial target audience was indeed still the primary target market and whether there were additional, untapped consumer groups that could help grow this brand’s market share.
What's more, targeting Millennials and Generation Z is challenging and typically requires a larger-than-usual budget since their media consumption is extremely fragmented and attention spans are shorter. So, several ad formats must be created to create awareness and motivate purchase intent. The outcome was inevitable. They would need to invest more in creative development to reach this elusive target audience.
The Solution
Revealing New Audiences for Market Growth
After conducting some top-line distribution analysis, brand leaders identified particular geographic regions where the beverage was losing market share.
If brand stewards wanted to understand who the consumers were in these areas, they needed to dig deeper into their psychographics and demographics.
Using TelmarHelixa’s Explore solution, the beverage brand’s agency generated in-depth research that included:
- Geographic distribution and consumption analysis
- Advanced segmentation of current consumers — and the competitor's consumers
- Detailed statistical analysis of energy drink consumers' psychographics, behaviors, and attitudes
Based on TelmarHelixa’s Explore solution's powerful segmentation capabilities, the agency identified a new consumer segment for the client’s beverage. Like the initial target group, this consumer group's lifestyle heavily influenced their behavior. They also seek out products that offer an energy boost for long stretches of time.
One surprising insight was that this audience was slightly older and was not the stereotypical energy drinker. Moreover, they predominantly chose energy drinks that competed against the client’s brand. Who were they? It turned out that they were long-distance drivers who aimed to stay awake and alert during their long driving shifts.
From a media strategy and targeting perspective, this consumer segment was much easier to reach than the Millenials and Generation Z, which helped reduce the overall media budget. These previously undiscovered consumers could easily be targeted with more traditional media types because they are mainly found driving on highways, listening to the radio, and stopping at rest stops and gas stations.