Even iconic brands like Heinz have a need for

innovation, and solid consumer insights are

crucial for its success. The challenge here was

how consumer insights could be leveraged to a

maximum. How can we generate as many unique

insights as possible which are also relevant for

consumers? How can we engage both internal and

external stakeholders to use the consumer insights?

What human insights - related to understanding

people’s daily tomato ketchup usage - can be linked

to and used for optimizing (e.g. packaging)

innovation ideas?

What to

expect?

This whole context created a need for generating as

many unique and profound insights as possible. It

is our firm belief that consumers are among the most

effective consultants a company can hire and structural

collaboration with them was required. The reasons for

structural consumer connections are multiple, e.g.

consumers often have a long tenure with brands,

they are engaged with brands and they are always

right as they decide to buy brands (or not). We

therefore engaged in a structural collaboration with

consumers and empowered them throughout Heinz’

innovation process in several phases (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 - From Human Insight to Innovation

Phase 1: Online ethnography

in-home consumption. All participants were asked to report on their

ketchup and cold sauce usage as well as that of their families. On an

interactive blog, people described the context of each picture and reflected

on drivers for consuming this particular cold sauce.

In order to reveal consumers’ latent motivations, we applied several

observational techniques such as activation and deprivation

exercises. During activation, people were asked to start using ketchup more

often. During deprivation periods, we requested participants not to consume

any ketchup for a couple of days and to report the moments when they

missed it.

The aim in this first part was to generate new insights via a structured process that allows one to

explore, discover, fine-tune and screen consumer insights. We conducted a three-week online

ethnography with 28 consumers, generating over 1,000 consumer usage photos

tagged with consumer stories. Four different groups of consumers were recruited:

Heinz Ketchup users, ketchup but non-Heinz-Ketchup-consumers, cold sauce consumers cold sauces

and people who typically eat ketchup away of home but did not buy it for

Subsequently, we also conducted discussions with

participants of the ethnography to come to a more in-

depth understanding of latent needs and to probe these

needs. All the data from the ethnography and interviews

were assembled in an interactive consumer dashboard

(i.e. a database of tagged consumer visuals and stories)

which allowed the Heinz team to access the consumer

stories intuitively.

Figure 2 - Example of consumer news pushed internally at Heinz

To stimulate the connection between Heinz marketers and consumers, daily updates of ‘consumer news’ were

sent to the Heinz team via different (private) social media. This consumer news shared the most striking

consumer findings in “real time” as it ran at the same time as the field of the ethnography (see Figure 2).

To maximise the internal impact at Heinz even further we also compiled a film with the main results from the study.

Phase 2: Crowd interpretation

Next to traditional ideation techniques we applied the technique of crowd interpretation.

Crowd interpretation is the analysis of research data by a group of research participants (i.e. the consumers

themselves) in order to obtain a richer, more accurate interpretation of data which leads to insights. It is

based on two theoretical principles:

Wisdom of the crowd states that when grouping the information from different individuals, the

decision of the group will outperform the decision made by one single member (Surowiecki,

2004). We believe that it is beneficial to analyse research data with a group of people or a

crowd in order to obtain better insights.

Wisdom of the crowd

Bounded rationality is the idea that in decision making, rationality of individuals is limited by the

information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds and the finite amount of time

they have to make decisions (Simon, 1991). The interpretation of data is coloured by the sole

perspective of a researcher or manager and limited by his knowledge. By looking at the research results

with a consumer crowd, we believe to have a greater chance to find the original insights. In fact,

consumers are natural explorers and journalists, so their “truth” is at least as valid as that of researchers

or marketers (Medina, 2008).

Managers’ “bounded reality”

The crowd interpretation was done via a synchronous interactive online game. The game lasted

for about one hour and had the following characteristics:

The game had different rounds under time pressure. Between each round

participants were shown a score board with the intermediate scores to motivate

participants to do even better in the interpretation.

A social dimension was added to the game by providing chat windows in which

participants could talk to each other when the score board was shown. This

enhanced the social status of participants.

In the last round new information was unlocked. People could see the input of

other participants. The anticipation of this information stimulates people to continue the

game.

The better a participant was at interpreting another participant’s input, the more points

he/she gained. At the end of the game, the incentive was split in accordance to

the number of points the participants had gathered.

In total, we extracted 40 insights from the data. Eight of these insights (20%) came uniquely from the crowd via the

method of crowd interpretation. Hence, crowd interpretation proves to be a powerful mechanism as it helps

shed a new light on consumer data and delivers complementary insights of similar quality as the ones

derived from researchers.

The crowd interpretation did not only help to find better insights but also helped making the insighting project more

visible within Heinz. Heinz managers and marketers also played the same game. They went through the

same procedure. Their interpretations were fed back to the consumers who evaluated them on

correctness. This client involvement helped significantly. It was not so much the input of clients in isolation but

especially the conversation and feedback of the participants on the client interpretation that helped identify additional

blind spots in the current way of thinking.

The marketers were also excited about the game experience itself. Next to testing their

expertise about consumer know-how, it also tapped into internal competitiveness and

even team building as the game fever hit. To illustrate such internal leverage, the project

owner, a Heinz Marketing Director in Europe, described it in her e-mail to the whole team as

follows:

“Dear all, I really encourage all of you to spend this hour

as it is not only a crucial part of the process to get your

thoughts and thinking on this but it is also a fun learning

experience for yourself. I just finished it myself and

considered it time well spent, despite my too full schedule.

Maybe this is another incentive: I guess none of you want

me to win this game…”

Intermission: Human Insights as Backbone

After a quantitative insight validation study and ideation workshops, the human insights derived from

the ethnography and crowd interpretation engagement served as the backbone for Heinz to

derive packaging ideas. The insighting work led to a profound understanding of “people” (not consumers

or shoppers) using tomato ketchup and the role the condiment plays in their daily life. What was needed

was input about what it is that inspires people to use ketchup and how it facilitates their daily life. This

allowed the Heinz team and design agencies to get into ideation mode for concrete innovation

development. Box 1 on the next slide illustrates such human insights that led to concrete packaging

prototypes.

1 Naturalness as indication for quality

Present to impress

Eating is boring sometimes, but should be fun for

kids

Eating with your eyes

Spice up that meal

Several human insights centered around themes such as:

Box 1 - Examples of human insights directly relevant for packaging

designs

2

3

4

5

Phase 3: Global online research community

After developing packaging prototypes along these insights, an online research community in 7 key markets

(Japan, China, the UK, Russia, Germany, the USA and Brazil) was set up. The objectives were to better

understand expectations towards a packaging in a local context; to obtain consumer feedback for a

range of packaging innovations and to assess opportunity areas for further pack idea optimisation.

The “Heinz Shape It” community was conducted with 191 active participants; it generated over 6,000 consumer

posts over the course of 3 weeks. The research community contained 4 separate discussion rooms.

Figure 3 - Heinz Shape It Research community platform design

Each room focused on a specific set of

packaging ideas addressing a similar

consumer benefit. A fifth room was a social

corner which allowed the participants to

engage in tangential “off-topic”

conversations. Such a social room is needed

to keep the focus and reduce the noise in the

actual research discussions, but it also helps

to create consumer engagement

(Schillewaert et al. 2011). Figure 3 is an

illustration of the community design.

The research reality was that there were many

pack designs (13) to be tested and optimised.

For each of them, the information needs and

research procedure had to be the same in

order to allow consistency in research

findings and management decisions. This

would potentially lead to very repetitive and dull

exercises for consumers to complete, with the

danger of a decrease in data or in data quality as

a result. Another aspect of the research context

was that several iterations and probes were

required to allow for creative design adaptations.

In addition, many stakeholders from Heinz where

involved: consumer insights, marketing and

branding functions.

To deal with this research reality we developed a specific

approach to allow for effective community

management and to maximise engagement with

consumers as well as executives (Schillewaert and De

Ruyck 2012). The 13 packaging designs were presented

to the consumers in a layered and interactive fashion in 3

consecutive phases: (1) animations illustrating packaging

usage, (2) static visual boards with extra explanations and

(3) a joint presentation of animatic and concept board.

Each of these phases allowed to ask different probing

questions about the same packaging idea without

boring the participants. At the same time different

engagement and activation techniques were used to

encourage participation among community members:

Participants were “poked” to participate and received badges when reaching a given activity level

for specific activities, e.g. uploading photos, answering specific important probes, participation rates in

general as well as across discussion rooms.

Relatedly participants were encouraged to start their own discussions as if they were Heinz executives.

Because the pack evaluation procedure was repetitive and lengthy for consumers, we organised a treasure

hunt quiz. A riddle and 3 hints were hidden “somewhere” in the community behind a hyperlink. The quest

concerned the year of Heinz’ foundation and hints were “We are looking for a number”, a photo of Ghandi

(born the same year as Heinz) and a picture of Marilyn Monroe with a birthday cake. Participants knew

upfront about the quiz and the fact that they could win an extra $10.

The project lead - Marketing Manager Ketchup at Heinz - introduced it herself, stressed the

importance of the study and thanked for the progress made through personalised blog posts on

the community. This particular small action of compassion humanised the research study as well as the

brand - consumers where thankful to Heinz for being part of the initiative and realised something important

was to be done with their inputs.

1

2

3

4

The impact of these engagement techniques

was a heightened activity on the community

as all participants wanted to read everything which

was going on in the community. Participants posted

links to wikipages and helped each other in solving

the quiz. All this led to better social dynamics which

enhanced the discussion levels and participation

rates. The online community not only engaged

consumers as participants but also marketers

from the local market teams (who actively

participated in the discussion) as well product

developers from the design agency. The design

agency used the insights and discussions as

inspiration for developing interactive animations of

new pack designs which were then shaped and

evaluated by consumers.

The online research community and engagement

techniques allowed for a continuous iteration of ideas and

learning: consumers elaborated on ideas, commented on

proposed designs while the design agency developed new

concepts based on the instant consumer feedback.

In order to stimulate the connection between Heinz

marketers, designers and consumers, daily updates

of ‘consumer news’ were sent to the Heinz team

members via different (private) social media. In the

consumer news, we shared the most striking consumer

news from the community. Through such internal

engagement, the executives’ knowledge increases and

they will converse about the study at the water cooler and

continue to observe consumers beyond the mere report.

Conclusion

Our case study shows that there is a clear added value in insight driven innovation by means of

structurally collaborating with consumers for a number of reasons. First, we engaged with

consumers to think harder. We illustrated how to bring consumers into the boardroom and to generate

intelligence creatively or create knowledge leverage. Second, our study shows how to create internal

leverage within companies and how to make sure research becomes a conversation starter beyond

the 60-minute debrief. Finally, our study ensured a positive external leverage by means of a positive

brand touch point experience among consumers. We also illustrated there is more potential with

consumers themselves than we think. Consumers can be used as co-researchers as illustrated in our

crowd interpretation method.

In summary, market research is about ‘humans’… understanding them out there

in the market as well as changing their behaviour within companies.

Annelies Verhaeghe Head of Research Innovation

InSites Consulting

Bert Borggreve

Consumer Insight Manager HCE

H.J. Heinz, Continental Europe

Niels Schillewaert Managing Partner & Co-founder

InSites Consulting

Gigi Ilustre

Senior International Marketing

Research Manager

H.J. Heinz, Continental Europe

References

Medina, John (2008). Brain Rules, Pear Press, WA.

Schillewaert, N., De Ruyck, T., Ludwig S. and M. Mann (2011). The dark side to

crowdsourcing in online research communities. CASRO Journal, pp. 5-9,

http://issuu.com/casro/docs/casro-2011_journal.

Schillewaert, N. and De Ruyck, T. (2012). Give 'em all something to talk about.

Tips for effective community management. Quirk’s Marketing Research Review,

April.

Simon, Herbert (1991). Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning.

Organization Science 2 (1): 125- 134.

Surowiecki, James (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter

Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies,

Societies and Nations Little. Brown

Want to know

more about Consumer

Insight Activation?

annelies@insites-consulting.com

+32 9 269 14 06

Annelies Verhaeghe Head of Research Innovation

Thank you!

@InSites

marketing@insites-consulting.com

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