A few years ago we were approached by a local farmer who wanted to diversify (along with plenty of others) what their farm was producing. Supermarkets were hammering them lower and lower on price – while asking consumers to pay more – and they needed to break even at least.
So they developed a range of crisps. Not your 50p bag – but a range of luxury sharing crisps.
They found some great packaging and had shopped around a few agencies for a design they liked.
But for some reason, the design just did not work – all the ingredients (see what we did there) were there but for some reason it just felt flat and uninspiring.
The client came to us for help – how do we get this product to market and make people believe it is worth the premium price?
Not a simple job at all.
We did our research, updated the branding, created a back story for each flavour, sourced photography and all was going well.
Until, let’s call him ‘Paul’ came back with his feedback.
‘I’ve been showing a few people and they don’t like it’ – funny that, because everyone we had researched absolutely loved it.
‘Where did you research it?’
“I took it to the Rose and Crown and asked them..’
Seems the Rose and Crown might not have been the best place to research a luxury sharing crisp.
Paul mates down the pub, it turns out, we’re not his mates and generally did things to annoy him but he had not realised.
Every time Paul had shown Billy down the pub, he had come back and changed the design, then changed the agency (twice).
So we stood our ground and when we put it in front of buyers and general public, they loved it.
They loved the packaging, the story, the branding and above all the crisps – that bit they had got spot on.
Roll-on 10 years and the crisps are behind the bar of many local and national pubs, in supermarkets, farm shops and pretty much everywhere.
The agency might have changed and some of the stories have been watered down – but for a convivial crisp – proper market research was the way to go rather than Billy down the pub.
