Overview

At Shift, we’ve seen it many times: businesses invest heavily in creating a superior product, only to be met with disappointing results. One client’s story illustrates this perfectly. They launched a new drink they believed was better than the market leader; superior ingredients, taste, and quality. On paper, it was a clear winner.

Yet the market didn’t respond, leaving the client frustrated and asking: “If our product is better, why aren’t people buying it?”

This is a challenge many businesses face. A flawless product often isn’t enough. Unless you understand the real drivers of their decisions and connect with your audience on a deeper level, you can easily miss the mark.

Our Approach

Using our proprietary tools, ReTrack™ and PrimeTrack™, we set out to uncover the behavioural triggers driving purchase decisions and perceptions within the category.

As context is key, we looked beyond the product itself to understand the broader influences and habits that shape consumer behaviour. This meant exploring the different ways people purchase and consume drinks in the category as well as the behaviour of non-category users to understand what was holding them back.

Output

Our research uncovered several core themes that resonated across all consumer segments and revealed a clear pattern: purchasing decisions were driven more by implicit associations and habits than by functional elements like quality or ingredients. The competition wasn’t necessarily better; it was simply more familiar.

By understanding the deeper psychological drivers shaping consumer behaviour and the market leader’s strengths and weaknesses, we identified clear opportunities to shift perceptions and a promising gap in the market that could be unlocked to drive appeal amongst a broader audience.

The findings revealed that the key to unlocking demand wasn’t just the product’s taste or features, it was its visual presentation and messaging. We provided clear recommendations on the elements the proposition should include, and identified a key product attribute that, when made more explicit, has the potential to justify the price premium and strengthen overall appeal.

The result? Our client launched on the basis of our recommendations and became the category leader within three months.