Tera's Whey
Integrating Customer Feedback into New Product Development
Challenge:
tera’s provides high quality, nutritious whey products for people seeking a healthy lifestyle. Due to the growing popularity of supplemental proteins, tera’s has been actively developing new products to meet increasing consumer demand. As a result, they haven’t had time to commit to lengthy new product development processes. tera’s needed a quick, efficient way to learn more about the growing new category’s target consumer and gather feedback on proposed new product concepts.
Solution:
The Digsite online platform provided tera’s a means in which to collect feedback from a variety of their target consumers in real time. Working with Digsite Partner Karla Baranski of Fountainhead Brand Consulting, tera’s set up a series of four, week-long Digsite Sprints:
- Sprint 1: Background information, attitudes, current behaviors
- Sprint 2: Posting photos of what consumers are currently using and how
- Sprint 3: Get reaction to actual concepts
- Sprint 4: Test and use product samples
Digsite’s ability to handle photos, video and diary entries provided a unique opportunity for tera’s to gain valuable input on their product concepts and new category target in a timely manner.
tera’s sent samples of their own products directly to all community participants, urging them to test the product in their homes. tera's then set up a series of follow-up activities to collect specific feedback from the participants. These activities called for participants to communicate using a combination of photo and video to share their experiences with the group. Karla was then able to probe participants further based on their responses and iterate on concepts to gather the full customer perspective on both the activity and the sample product.
Results:
The Digsite community enabled tera’s to test products and concepts before they went to market. They were able to verify what was important to their new consumer and make adjustments to the concepts in real time. With this guidance, tera’s was able to confidently put their resources behind the right activities, allowing them to prioritize accurately and streamline their process. This experience also enabled tera’s to take risks during the Digsite community rather than learning on the shelf or from a customer in market, again saving time and money and allowing for further distinction from competition.
Take Your Experience Further
“Digsite has become a valuable tool for tera’s when they are developing and evaluating products. It’s their go-to method for getting this kind of feedback.”
