The Challenge
McBride plc is a leading British-based manufacturing business, noted as being Europe’s biggest maker of retailer own brand household and professional cleaning/hygiene products.
To strengthen its portfolio, McBride was looking to test a range of new product concepts (including automatic dishwasher products, laundry cleaners and conditioners and water softener) to test in the UK, Germany and France. The research was required to test and evaluate each of the concepts to identify those with the greatest consumer appeal in order to inform product and retailer strategy.
Research Approach
Working very closely alongside McBride, Vision One adopted a quantitative method incorporating our IdeaProbe approach, We conducted an online survey across the UK, France and Germany amongst females who were the main household shoppers and aged 25 – 45 years. There was a wide range of concepts tested but each respondent rated a maximum of three concepts.
Research Findings
Laundry: a probiotic formula performed extremely well – especially on uniqueness which suggests there is potential for such a product in each of the three countries.
Dishwashing products: In dishwashing, a complete care concept performed the highest on all key measures of all the dishwasher concepts, suggesting a real opportunity for McBride to satisfy an unmet need in the market.
Water Softeners: results for water softeners differed quite remarkably across the three markets with varying levels of interest; the product concept was seen as being unique in France.
The insights from the research were extremely informative and provided McBride with actionable direction for new product development within the three categories and informed the marketing opportunities across the markets.