Project parameters

5 days

1,300 Gen Z consumers

Qual and quant

China, Mexico, the US, Turkey and South Africa

The challenge

In countries around the world, juice-based drinks - RTD, non-carbonated, non-alcoholic, low juice content (<25% juice) drinks - are emerging. This leading soft drinks manufacturer holds a key stake in this category and is facing strong competition from brands like Capri-Sun, Wahaha, and Juduobao. To protect market share, the brand needed to conduct a drivers and barriers study amongst Gen Z consumers to inform product innovation in the juice-based space and guide the product specifications and strategy in selected markets.

“We know Juice-based drinks are popular amongst the Teen/Gen-Z group, but we want to find out more about their needs in their own words" shared the company’s Senior Insights Manager.

The action

The team knew consumer insights would be vital to validate their hypotheses and identify any new areas of interest. The findings would also be used to help identify the most effective positioning and messaging for the design and marketing of the new product. As a result, the team felt strongly that this true consumer closeness needed to come from a more qualitative approach to insights, but that scale was critical to provide robust results. The added complexity of an upcoming stakeholder meeting meant time was of the essence.

“We needed these insights in order to better prepare for a stakeholder deadline and SBX worked with our timelines,” added the company’s Senior Director of Global Brand Strategy.

Streetbees harnessed its community of bees (consumers) in China, Mexico, the US, Turkey and South Africa and its AI-powered mobile app to capture qualitative and quantitative insights from 1,300 Gen Z consumers.

Using the SBX tool, the client team created a fully fledged research brief and conversation guide to suit their needs. The tool then conversed with consumers to understand their desires, expectations and experiences, optimising its questions in real time to delve deeper into what they had shared.

This resulted in thousands of rich verbatims that were then coded and quantified to identify audience and market opportunities. All of this was delivered in a tailored, interactive dashboard in just 5 days.

The outcome

“What I really like about Streetbees is that they provide a way to do qualitative research at quantitative scale. This is really valuable because it answers the 'why?' rather than just the 'what?'.”

Armed with rich insights and clear recommendations, the client team now had a clear blueprint on which to base their product development and marketing. Their hypothesis regarding the influence of taste was supported. However, the emphasis placed on health and mood gave them a direction in which to alter their strategy.

The insights revealed overwhelming support for multi-sensory drinks and world flavours, with consumers even suggesting what would appeal to them through the tool’s nuanced probing. Additionally, the team received information on which occasions to target and what implications in-home vs. OOH activations would have on purchase channels and packaging.

All of this fed into the stakeholder meeting to provide a clear and nuanced understanding of where they should place their investment and why, helping the team make informed decisions based on the needs of their customers.