Case Study
Revealing the Hidden Roles Products Play in Consumer Routines …and new Innovation Possibilities
The Client
A global leader in men’s personal care wanted to understand the role different products played within modern grooming routines, how consumers combine them, and where new opportunities for innovation are emerging.
The Challenge
As grooming routines continue to evolve, traditional product categories no longer fully explain how consumers choose and use products. The client wanted to understand the deeper functional, emotional and sensory jobs each product fulfilled, identify unmet needs and uncover where meaningful innovation opportunities existed beyond incremental improvements.
The Results
- The research revealed that consumers were using products for a broader mix of functional, emotional and sensory reasons than traditional category definitions suggest. Certain product attributes acted as both performance signals and emotional cues, helping explain why products earned a place in everyday routines.
- Rather than validating a single concept, the work identified priority consumer jobs, mapped future innovation territories and developed an Ideal Product Model™ to guide future product development and investment.
Untapped Approach
Explored real routines to understand why consumers included different products and how they worked together.
Identified the functional, emotional and sensory Jobs-to-be-Done driving product choice and use.
Revealed emerging need states and opportunities
Built an Untapped Ideal Product Model™ linking consumer jobs to future product attributes, innovation opportunities and research priorities to help de-risk further innovation work
“Consumers don’t think in product categories. They think about what they need a product to do for them in that moment. Understanding those hidden jobs often reveals innovation opportunities that conventional category thinking misses..”
Image by magnific.com
