A European pet food brand started out with a simple idea: healthy products designed to make both dogs and their owners happy. With its attractive packaging and purpose-driven brand voice, it quickly grew into a fast-rising pet food name. As part of a multinational food company, the brand recently set its sights on expanding to another continent. An exciting leap into a large and ultimately very different market.
Carving out a place in a new market
From the start, the team knew their European success formula wouldn’t simply translate to a different continent, where dog owners have different habits, values, and ways of buying pet food. To succeed, they needed to know exactly who to target, through which channels, and with what kind of story.
There was an added twist: the wider group already owned one of the leading natural pet food brands in the new market. The key question became how to position this new entrant so it could claim its own space without cannibalising the group’s existing portfolio.
The team had experience with segmentation and had even organised the fieldwork themselves. With the launch deadline approaching fast, they needed a partner who could deliver fast, with both analytical rigour and actionable insights.
Turning data into clear direction
The company already knew about boobook’s expertise in segmentation and trusted us to take on the analysis and reporting of their study. Our role was to quickly turn the collected data into robust, actionable segments that would guide the launch.
The dataset brought along an extra challenge, with some low-quality responses slipping through the net. Our data scientist, Dan Luca, applied advanced analytics to ensure the results were robust and reliable. Once the foundation was solid, we explored different segmentation approaches and discussed the outcomes in detail with the client team.
Together, we selected the model that not only held up statistically but also made sense from a business perspective. This close collaboration was key to making the segmentation actionable. As the director of digital marketing, put it: “The segmentation feels very clear, very intuitive and insightful.”
From data to five clear segments
The outcome of the study was a set of five distinct consumer segments that gave the company a much sharper view of the new market. Each segment was described in detail:
- Who they are (e.g. age, gender, household, life stage)
- Their doggy passport (e.g. dog size, age, where the dog comes from)
- What matters in dog food (e.g. quality, health, sustainability, enjoyment)
- How they buy (e.g. purchase drivers, channels, price sensitivity)
- Brand relationship (e.g. preferences, loyalty, openness to new brands)
- How they stay informed (e.g. media use and information sources)
Three learnings stood out as crucial to turning the segmentation into a true success:
- Every market is unique. European insights can’t simply be copied elsewhere.
- Stakeholder alignment is crucial. There’s no single ‘right’ segmentation, but the outcome must make sense from both a statistical and business standpoint.
- Linking consumer profiles with media usage was vital to turn the segmentation into a practical marketing tool.
With this segmentation in place, the company gained not just clarity on the consumers in this new market, but also a solid framework for brand positioning, marketing strategy and execution.
To make these insights future-proof, boobook equipped the team with a practical typing tool – built on golden questions and a tailored algorithm – enabling them to easily identify the segments in future research projects.
