How Mars Wrigley Boosted Efficiency and Consumer Connectivity with Agile Research
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A look behind the scenes at the R&D program inside one of the world’s biggest brands to see where agile market research tools like Suzy fit in.
Like so many other companies, even a high-profile corporation like Mars Wrigley had to be light on its feet in 2020. Among the brand’s biggest concerns: maintaining connectivity with the consumer.
“One of our key missions for the sensory team at Mars Wrigley is about fostering consumer centricity; we really want to connect the teams with our consumer so we can help delight them,” said Lisa Saxon Reed, Global Director of Sensory at Mars Wrigley Confectionery, in a recent conversation with Carly Skinder, Suzy’s Director of Enterprise Growth and Strategy. “Starting with COVID, it’s been really hard — how do we have that intimacy with consumers when we can’t be in their homes, and when we can’t be in the stores with them?”
Luckily, Saxon Reed and the rest of her research and development squadron already had a year of experience under their collective belt utilizing Suzy. Leveraging the platform and other agile tools throughout 2020, they were in a prime position to push forward.
The partnership with Suzy was not an initial no-brainer from Saxon Reed’s perspective, however.
“I am always on the hunt for ways we can do our job better and faster,” Saxon Reed said. Still, she added: “When I first heard about Suzy, I was like, ‘I don’t know. Could that work for R&D? I’m not sure.’”
She decided Mars Wrigley would engage in a Suzy pilot program lasting three months. Throughout that stretch, she and her team experimented with the platform.
By the end of the pilot, according to Saxon Reed, she was convinced Suzy would help the company on the R&D side at the very least. She was happy to find that her team also unanimously endorsed a partnership with Suzy, which paid big-time dividends as the world was enveloped in a pandemic.
“Actually, it’s worked out OK,” Saxon Reed said about using Suzy during these difficult circumstances. “We actually can do things in [consumers’] homes with them; we can see their cupboards; we can see what their experiences are like.”
Like many, she’s already got an eye toward the future as well. “Virtual is not going away,” she asserted. “For us, it’s a new way of doing business, whether it’s meetings [or] having conversations with our consumers.”
Tools like Suzy have had a direct impact on internal workflows at Mars Wrigley. Saxon Reed said it’s even beefed up morale — which presumably was already high, given that the company manufactures, markets, and sells candy.
In the past, when quick decisions needed to be made, Saxon Reed said sometimes she heard “we do not have time to talk to the consumer.” Agile research tools like Suzy allow Mars Wrigley to literally — if only virtually — have the consumer in the meeting room with them. This helps the team to mute what Saxon Reed called “the loudest voice in the room,” a single figure that brings their own biases and may not represent the wishes and desires of our consumers.
Beyond the impact on projects, Saxon Reed said that there have also been positive impacts on her team. They have “more confidence in some of those iterative changes we’re making along the way or even at the very beginning,” and that they feel more empowered to “go out there and experiment to learn more about the consumer, without having to do a big old study and get all of these approvals.”
“I honestly think that makes our team a more agile and empowered team,” Saxon Reed continued. “I’m really proud of that impact on our associates in addition to the business impact.”
