Category Renovation Strategy
B2B
Asia
2022
Category renovation for omega-3 in Asia
Successful B2B players in food & health move beyond just selling ingredients. The ultimate goal is to create long-term value for your business by becoming your customers’ innovation partners. In this case study, we show you how we supported a global B2B ingredient supplier, and its customers, creating an innovation partnership to defend and grow the omega-3 market, together.
The challenge
#1: Moving from selling ingredients to becoming an innovation partner
Becoming an innovation partner for your customers can only be achieved when the B2B player adopts a B2B2C process, keeping the end consumer in mind at all stages. We supported our client in creating a consumer-centric process that paved the way to success, where their customers move from buying ingredients to buying solutions.
#2: The category challenge
The omega-3 category has become highly competitive and was attacked by other health categories offering more appealing and easier-to-understand benefits, such as herbal ingredients & probiotics. Also, omega-3 was mainly focused on older target groups. There was a need to look beyond the ingredient to revitalise the brand to bring back relevance to the category.
The solution
The key solution was to unite our client (B2B player) with their key account to renovate and grow the category.
Consumer segmentation
To grow the category strategically, we introduced a consumer segmentation strategy in our lifecycle model to avoid commoditisation of omega-3, introducing new benefits and making them relevant for new generations of consumers earlier in the lifecycle.
Brand differentiation to grow the portfolio
Co-creation workshops united the cross-functional teams, including our client and their key customer, to develop a brand and category renovation roadmap. This created clear alignment on where to play and how to win in the category resulting in a brand differentiation strategy.
FourFactors® Concept Development
With a concise consumer segmentation, it is possible to better understand different target consumer needs. This became the basis for concept development, where new ingredient claims could be turned into motivating and easy-to-understand consumer benefits
The result
#1: Category growth through new health benefits
Connecting to consumer insights, the project delivered claims that make the category more relevant to nowadays’ consumer needs. This was brought into a joint education campaign that helped to renew interest in the omega-3 category. As a result, both B2B and B2C sales observed impressive growth.
#2: Securing category leadership by joining forces
Guided by our strategic recommendation, our client joined forces with its customer to start the education cycle for the new health benefits. This resulted in increased consumer awareness and securing the customer’s leading position in the omega-3 category. By growing the category, the market leader wins the most, but all players in the category are winners.
What’s next? Vegan DHA!
With the plant-based movement, it seemed the natural next step to move into the vegan category. But how can a market leader in sigh oil introduce a vegan DHA without cannibalising on their fish-based range?
The market entry strategy that we suggested was to follow consumer and brand segmentation. It was crucial for this new vegan DHA to connect to the early adopters and their needs, whilst the core range targets the late mass market consumers. This allowed the brand to reach out to new generations of consumers and further enhance the brand’s market leadership.
Our methodology
The FourFactors®
The FourFactors® of Success is an innovation framework based on more than 15 years of analysis of success and failure factors in the global markets for healthy foods, beverages and dietary supplements that simplifies this equation for you.
B2B2C Building partnerships and long-term value
Successful B2B players in food & health move beyond just selling ingredients. The ultimate goal is to create long-term value for your business by becoming your customers’ innovation partners. Knowing your starting point and the end goal will help to develop the right activities to adopt a more customer and consumer-centric approach within your organisation and create long-term value for your business.
How can we help?
Are you a change-maker in your area? Do you have a similar challenge? Contact us here and let us show you how we can create change together.