Stage 1: Groundwork
The Bord Bia Consumer Insights Team partnered with
Future Nutrition to develop a brand strategy and launch
plan for the US market for CreaOne, a new range of
creatine shots targeting sports enthusiasts.
This case study details how consumer and trade insight
transformed their approach and led them to develop
and launch additional products.
INSIGHTS AND INNOVATION WORKBOOK
Future Nutrition & CreaOne
Growing the success of Irish food & horticulture
Stage 2: Exploring
Stage 3: Refining
INSIGHTS AND INNOVATION WORKBOOK
Future Nutrition & CreaOne
PROJECT BACKGROUND
CreaOne is a liquid creatine shot, an aqua and acid-stable
product that quickly delivers a full 3 gram dose of creatine
monohydrate to the bloodstream for accelerated absorption to
the muscles. Unlike powdered creatine, it ensures the full dose
is consumed as it is stable and does not degrade into creatinine
before absorption.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
CONSUMER ISSUE
Future Nutrition was in discussions with
major retailers and wholesalers in the
US and UK sports nutrition business and
had received initial positive reaction to
CreaOne. They needed to develop their
brand and trade strategy further and
required formal reaction to substantiate
their business case. Consumer and trade
research would help them communicate
the benefits of the product more effectively
to distribution channels and consumers,
and would help them finesse the product
offering and plan future derivations.
We needed to understand how best
CreaOne could communicate its product
benefit and USP with US sports enthusiasts;
and critically how the brand could establish
itself as a credible alternative to traditional
creatine. We also needed to understand the
role of third level or scientific endorsements,
and the optimal price points for the brand.
Stage 1:
Groundwork
Stage 2:
Exploring
Stage 3:
Refining
THE PROCESS
The Consumer Insights Team’s role was to make sure that the US launch and
distribution strategy was supported with deep consumer understanding and
ensured the brand resonated and gained traction amongst the core consumer
target of sports enthusiasts.
We worked through the Bord Bia Insight and Innovation Workbook from
Stage 1: Groundwork right up to Stage 3: Refining.
HOW DID WE HELP?
Stage 1: Groundwork:
Our groundwork involved understanding
online opinion leaders. This entailed a
content analysis and review of online
conversations around creatine brands
and supplements.
We needed to complete this as the
target consumer for most sport nutrition
products or supplements relies upon
the internet to ‘research’ many of the
products they buy. Peer reviews, web
forums and blogs all play an important
role in shaping consumer attitudes
towards supplements. By completing
a content analysis around creatine, we
ensured we fully understood the language
of consumers, and began to identify the
types of messages and ‘product truths’
that online opinion leaders currently
‘broadcast’ today.
Stage 2: Exploring:
Now that we understood the category
context and the language of it, we
needed to explore the opportunity further
and understand consumer needs and
behaviour. This entailed primary research
in the form of in-depth interviews with
opinion leaders such as personal trainers
and sports nutrition store managers.
We wanted to understand reaction to
the CreaOne concept, their barriers to
adoption and key triggers to endorsement
of the product.
This exercise identified how trainers
and store managers would endorse
the brand and build CreaOne into their
clients’ training regimes. We understood
the key occasions, benefits and product
experience, as well as pricing and
motivating direct sell.
Stage 3: Refining:
In stage three we moved onto the target
consumer to understand attitudes to the
concept and ‘road test’ the marketing
messages that have been developed with
the opinion leaders. We also conducted
four consumer discussion groups to
sample and assess their reactions to the
products taste.
WHAT WERE THE
INSIGHTS?
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT
ON THE BUSINESS?
Since undertaking the work with Bord
Bia, Future Nutrition have re-launched
CreaOne and also developed Little
Dragon Extreme Pre-Workout, a shot
containing caffeine and a 3g serving of
creatine. This took into consideration
the core insights derived from the
consumer research around pre-workout
formats, particularly in respect of the
consumer’s understanding of creatine
and amendment of the core message
for the products.
The CreaOne concept was very well
received by consumers and the trade/
professionals alike, the product is very
much ‘on-trend’ with the emerging liquid
sports nutrition supplements category.
Both brands have been launched in the
US and Europe, and on Amazon. The
new core messaging will feature in all
customer communications and in new
product developments, and will drive the
brand from now on at all points of sale,
and at trade shows and on the web.
The concept has a more ‘mainstream’
appeal than one might initially think.
CreaOne represents an opportunity to
position a ‘one unit’ creatine dose as
endurance based supplement. The lean
mass building claim around CreaOne is
one that could act as potential ‘reason to
believe’ in the product as a pre or intraworkout product that can work for sports
enthusiasts. As with protein for recovery,
it is likely that pre-workouts will move
into ready to drink liquids formats and
CreaOne could be one of the first to move
into that space.
Sales to date in Ireland have been
encouraging, with a new distributor
appointed, selling mainly at point-of-use
in gyms and vending machines nationally.
A UK distributor has been appointed
and initial stocks have been dispatched,
with another distributor currently
under approach. A new US customer
in California has been identified, and
US labeling is under development. The
Extreme product has generated further
enquiry from an own-brand viewpoint,
and several prospects are under
negotiation.
Bord Bia’s Insight & Innovation Workbook
These exciting new products from Future Nutrition were developed using best
practice techniques detailed in Bord Bia’s Insight and Innovation Workbooks.
For more information contact:
E-mail: info@bordbia.ie
Telephone: (01) 6885155
Growing the success of Irish food & horticulture