Challenge

Our client, is now a renowned coffee brand in Malaysia was planning for their maiden-entry to Malaysia. Bringing in their formulas originating from Japan (focusing on the RTD ready-to-drink category), our client, intention was to identify the taste profile for their product. Hence, the need to have an understanding on Malaysian consumers’ perceptions and acceptance towards their formulas and to identify the winning formula that best suits the locals’ taste buds. At the same time, our client also evaluated their packaging designs to identify the winning packaging design to go with along with their ready-to-drink coffee formula.

Approach

As our client has three (3) prototypes for evaluation, we have adopted a centralised location test (CLT) with an estimate of 500 respondents participating in the study; splitting across three (3) panels of matching profiles. For each panel, sequential monadic testing was applied between the client’s prototype with one key competitor product. Sequential monadic testing is also applied to packaging design evaluation sessions. Depending on the respondent’s most often consumed variant, respondents were allocated to the different panels where they first undergo the product evaluation testing after which they proceeded with the evaluation of the packaging designs.

Results

While our client’s products have a competitive advantage over competitor’s products, there were some indications that tweaking is required for our clients’ products to better accustomed to Malaysians’ taste buds. Aside from the products’ taste profile, the client’s packaging design required tweaking. Taking our recommendations into consideration, our client did tweak their products (as well as their packaging designs) and engaged in a few more rounds of CLT testing to finally optimise their formula for Malaysians. Together with their successful branding and marketing strategies, they eventually grew to become one of the renowned key players in the category.