See how products truly perform in consumers' everyday environments, uncovering insights that can predict real market success. We help you see how products truly perform in consumers’ everyday environments, uncovering insights that can predict real market success. Through in-home testing, we capture the full experience: from first impressions and ease of use to how it fits into routines, uncovers unexpected benefits or barriers, and compares to what they’re using now. This big-picture view helps you fine-tune products before launch to meet—and exceed—consumer expectations. For more controlled insights, Central Location Testing (CLT) lets consumers evaluate products, packaging, ads, or concepts in a consistent, in-person setting. By minimizing outside variables, CLT delivers fast, reliable feedback – perfect for product testing, sensory evaluations, and head-to-head comparisons.
Our client, operating within the highly competitive personal grooming category, initiated a consumer acceptance test for three new product prototypes. The primary objectives were to determine if a prototype could achieve consumer acceptance by performing at parity or better than the main competitor on overall preference and key performance claims, and also improving upon their current product offering, which needed enhancement in areas related to skin protection.
A sequential monadic home usage test (HUT) was conducted involving five products: Our client’s current product, the main competitive product and three new prototypes. The results delivered a decisive outcome. One prototype clearly surpassed both the current product and the competitive benchmark on overall preference and the majority of tested claims. This suggested a viable path for product improvement and market leadership.
By focusing development on core experiential metrics, our client could leapfrog the competition. Key potential enhancements included delivering a significantly better user experience during application and validating stronger product results that support new, superior claims. Recommendations were to leverage the winning prototype to enhance overall performance across all relevant consumer touchpoints.
The key activation strategy involved moving forward with the winning prototype while focusing development efforts on addressing the pain points reported by users, thereby optimizing the user experience and ensuring long-term product success before commercial launch. Our data-driven approach allowed the client to move forward confidently to secure a superior market performance in their category.
