How Unlocking Shopper Behaviors Help Johnson & Johnson and Nestlé Meet Consumer Needs

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As a slew of market disruptions continue to affect consumers, manufacturers, retailers, and everyone in between, Suzy speaks with two global brands about the ways researchers can still inform strategy.

Consumers and brands have been adversely affected by the recent spike in inflation and supply chain issues. However, inflation was anticipated, and the supply chain has faced challenges for two years. 

But the current events keep coming, and they have real implications for both brands and consumers.

“This particular environment is changing so quickly,” said Emily Walgenbach, Senior Manager for Shopper Insights at Nestlé U.S.A.’s frozen food division, during a recent conversation, “How Johnson & Johnson and Nestlé Are Unlocking Shopper Behaviors.” “Every week or so the information that we’re taking in, that we’re wanting to make decisions on, two weeks later becomes out of date, and we’re working with a new set of real world challenges.”

Brands can and need to respond to these challenges to meet consumer needs.

Suzy’s Chief Customer Officer Katie Gross spoke with Walgenbach and Pearl Park, Johnson & Johnson’s Senior Manager of Customer Promotions and Insights, about how companies can contend with the dizzying array of concerns to best serve their customers. Here are some key takeaways:

Leverage Data and Insights Tools

Much goes into decision making at brands, particularly vast corporations like Nestlé and Johnson & Johnson, but data and retail insights tools, especially those that provide information fast, are an enormous help. They identify trends and either support instinct-driven strategies or inspire fresh approaches. 

Walgenbach suggested that researchers lean into more qualitative research to set up new quantitative studies, with previous data cachés likely irrelevant. Regardless of the market conditions, she said studies around path-to-purchase and market structure are still a must. However, she added that researchers have to more strongly consider the questions they are asking their survey participants today, making sure they are tightly tethered to the consumers’ current experiences. 

A tool like Suzy, Walgenbach said, helps her team “increasingly pulse with our shoppers now,” and avoid scenarios where research projects carry on for months, only to generate data that’s already dated. 

Even if data arrives fast, though, it must be accurate. Suzy not only provides real-time insights, but authentic ones, too. 

Walgenbach said she appreciates the Suzy settings that her team can “play with” to ensure “the coverage that you’re getting is aligned with the coverage that you’re looking for.” She provided a hypothetical example around how she can be sure that the consumers in a study are split 50/50 by gender, male and female. Such a setup allowed her to be certain “that’s what my response rate is, versus a category that might be more heavily dependent on males or females.”

Cultivate Data Democratization

With new tools like Suzy and others, data not only flows in abundance, but also potentially to every corner of an organization. Team members across departments are on the same page; decision-making happens more efficiently.

Walgenbach’s seen the impact data democratization has had on the Nestlé corporation: “[We’re] not having to wait for me or someone else with insights or another vendor to be able to share out that information,” she said. “They can go in and say, ‘Hey, I need to know X, Y or Z,’ and boom, it’s right at my fingertips immediately.”

Develop Scenario Plans

With all this fast-arriving, accurate data and widespread access to it, teams in various departments can plan for not just one outlook but generate multiple forecasts and response strategies. With “scenario planning,” Park suggested a company develop “three likely scenarios — high, medium, low, however you want to look at it — and the variables attached to those scenarios so you can be fluid in the process.”

Pivoting is less taxing on an organization when multiple courses of action have already been plotted out. Park noted that common areas of interest like price elasticity are more volatile right now, particularly in products that are considered relative “indulgences.” So, clearly, scenario planning is key. 

Focus on Fulfillment

Gross asked what impact a potentially rejuvenated consumer comfort level with in-store shopping may have on online shopping engagement. Park said consumers may return to stores, but all indications are that the number of new online shoppers will continue to grow, regardless of market instability. 

With that in mind, brands, she said, need to focus less on content and more on fulfillment, and solving issues like mal-delivery. 

“What we’ve tended to look at is what is actually driving that trip to online,” Park said. “It really is a good indicator of how you can shape your strategies and tactics. So for example, if a trip is a little bit more urgent-need in nature, time and convenience are going to be a currency for that shopper.”

For more information on how your brand can unlock shopper behaviors right now, watch the entire webinar at Suzy.com.