Skip the Screeners
- Erin Fredericks, Enterprise Director, Customer Insights, Numerator
- Halley Jhass, Director of Shopper Insights, Keurig Dr. Pepper
Research results should start with a deep understanding of consumers and their behaviors. Why rely on assumptions when you can base your research on reality? Join Keurig Dr. Pepper’s Halley Jhass and Numerator’s Erin Fredericks to see how mistaken recall can lead to misleading insights and learn how KDP partners with Numerator to keep a pulse on shoppers’ motivators and drivers across their portfolio of brands. Understand how they leverage both verified buyers and behaviors to get fast insights on topical subjects that allow them to adjust their strategy quickly across the organization.
“With Numerator, you’re interacting directly with highly engaged, verified buyers of your brands and products… You eliminate recall bias and you don’t pay on incidents.”
Actionable Takeaways:
- Prioritize verified buyer data: Consider incorporating verified buyer panels into your research strategy to improve data accuracy and reduce reliance on potentially flawed recall data.
- Use targeted surveys for quick insights: Employ short, targeted surveys with verified buyers to quickly answer specific business questions, especially during time-sensitive situations like sales meetings or product launches.
- Leverage behavioral data for deeper understanding: Combine purchase data with psychographic information to create robust consumer profiles and gain a more nuanced understanding of buyer motivations and behaviors.
Panel Fatigue and Flawed Recall
Remember the days of endless survey screeners, hoping to find the right respondents? Erin Fredericks, an Enterprise Director of Customer Insights at Numerator, kicked off the session by highlighting a persistent problem in market research: panelist fatigue. This, coupled with the unreliability of respondent recall, often leads to flawed data and wasted resources. Jhass from Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) shared her experience, emphasizing the importance of accurate data for sales and innovation.
KDP’s Quest for Consumer Obsession
KDP, a beverage giant with over 125 brands, including Keurig and Dr Pepper, prioritizes consumer-obsessed brand building. Their consumer insights team plays a crucial role in guiding innovation through research. A key focus for 2024 is bridging the gap between coffeehouse experiences and at-home consumption, driving the need for better iced coffee, lattes, and refreshers.
Numerator’s Solution: Verified Buyers
Numerator offers a unique approach: verified buyers. By analyzing receipt data from over 1 million households, Numerator identifies actual purchasers, eliminating the need for traditional screeners. This method offers several advantages:
- Eliminates recall bias: Respondents are confirming purchases they actually made, not relying on memory.
- Improves data quality: By focusing on verified buyers, researchers avoid issues like bot interference, professional respondents, and unqualified participants.
- Increases response rates: Engaging with highly qualified respondents leads to significantly higher response rates (around 50%).
- Provides richer data: Numerator combines purchase data with psychographic and media consumption information, creating detailed consumer profiles.
The Recall Reality Check
Numerator conducted a study across 32 categories, revealing that more than half of shoppers couldn’t recall the brand they purchased in the past three months, and one in five couldn’t even remember buying within the category at all. This highlights the significant impact of recall bias on traditional research. Even when asking verified coffee pod buyers if they bought coffee pods in the last three months, some responses didn’t align with their actual purchase history, as revealed by their receipts. This discrepancy impacted the understanding of purchase drivers, demonstrating the importance of verified purchase data.
KDP’s Three-Pronged Approach with Verified Buyers
KDP uses Numerator’s verified buyers in three key ways:
- Ongoing Strategic Insights (Shopper Pulse): KDP’s Shopper Pulse research tracks macro trends and their impact on beverage categories. By surveying verified buyers across various demographics, they gain a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior. For example, they discovered that lower-income households were more likely to buy smaller pack sizes and trade down to private label, leading KDP to adjust their K-Cup pod offerings.
- Everyday Tactical Decision Making: KDP uses quick-turn surveys with verified buyers to address specific business questions. During a national sales meeting, they conducted 43 surveys in two weeks, answering requests from various departments. Examples include understanding Diet Dr Pepper preferences among Whataburger shoppers, analyzing SNAP vs. non-SNAP shopper behavior at a specific retailer, and identifying consumers of non-alcoholic mixers.
- Quick-Turn Innovation: When launching new products like K-Cup iced refreshers, KDP uses verified buyer data to quickly gather feedback from trialists. This allows them to understand consumption habits, future purchase intent, and the likelihood of substituting coffeehouse visits with at-home brewing, providing valuable data for sales teams.
The Power of Verified Data
By using Numerator’s verified buyer panel, KDP gains access to more accurate, reliable data, allowing them to make informed decisions across various aspects of their business. From strategic planning to tactical execution and rapid innovation, verified buyer data provides a significant advantage in today’s competitive market. This approach allows KDP to truly understand their consumers and cater to their evolving needs and preferences.