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?

2. What to
expect?
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?

3. 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

4. Phase 1: Online ethnography

5. 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
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.

6. Subsequently, we also conducted discussions with
participants of the ethnography to come to a more indepth 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.

7. Phase 2: Crowd interpretation

8. 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
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.

9. Managers’ “bounded reality”
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).

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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…”

13. 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.

14. Several human insights centered around themes such as:
1
2
Naturalness as indication for quality
3
4
Eating is boring sometimes, but should be fun for
kids
5
Spice up that meal
Present to impress
Eating with your eyes
Box 1 - Examples of human insights directly relevant for packaging
designs

15. Phase 3: Global online research community

16. 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.
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.
Figure 3 - Heinz Shape It Research community platform design

17. The research reality was that there were many
To deal with this research reality we developed a specific
pack designs (13) to be tested and optimised.
approach to allow for effective community
For each of them, the information needs and
research procedure had to be the same in
management and to maximise engagement with
consumers as well as executives (Schillewaert and De
order to allow consistency in research
Ruyck 2012). The 13 packaging designs were presented
findings and management decisions. This
to the consumers in a layered and interactive fashion in 3
would potentially lead to very repetitive and dull
consecutive phases: (1) animations illustrating packaging
exercises for consumers to complete, with the
usage, (2) static visual boards with extra explanations and
danger of a decrease in data or in data quality as
(3) a joint presentation of animatic and concept board.
a result. Another aspect of the research context
was that several iterations and probes were
Each of these phases allowed to ask different probing
required to allow for creative design adaptations.
questions about the same packaging idea without
In addition, many stakeholders from Heinz where
involved: consumer insights, marketing and
branding functions.
boring the participants. At the same time different
engagement and activation techniques were used to
encourage participation among community members:

18. 1
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.
2
Relatedly participants were encouraged to start their own discussions as if they were Heinz executives.
3
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.
4
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.

19. The impact of these engagement techniques
The online research community and engagement
was a heightened activity on the community
techniques allowed for a continuous iteration of ideas and
as all participants wanted to read everything which
learning: consumers elaborated on ideas, commented on
was going on in the community. Participants posted
proposed designs while the design agency developed new
links to wikipages and helped each other in solving
concepts based on the instant consumer feedback.
the quiz. All this led to better social dynamics which
In order to stimulate the connection between Heinz
enhanced the discussion levels and participation
marketers, designers and consumers, daily updates
rates. The online community not only engaged
of ‘consumer news’ were sent to the Heinz team
consumers as participants but also marketers
members via different (private) social media. In the
from the local market teams (who actively
consumer news, we shared the most striking consumer
participated in the discussion) as well product
news from the community. Through such internal
developers from the design agency. The design
engagement, the executives’ knowledge increases and
agency used the insights and discussions as
they will converse about the study at the water cooler and
inspiration for developing interactive animations of
continue to observe consumers beyond the mere report.
new pack designs which were then shaped and
evaluated by consumers.

20. Conclusion

21. 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.

22. Annelies Verhaeghe
Niels Schillewaert
Bert Borggreve
Gigi Ilustre
Head of Research Innovation
InSites Consulting
Managing Partner & Co-founder
InSites Consulting
Consumer Insight Manager HCE
H.J. Heinz, Continental Europe
Senior International Marketing
Research Manager
H.J. Heinz, Continental Europe

23. References

24. 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

25. Want to know
more about Consumer
Insight Activation?
Annelies Verhaeghe
Head of Research Innovation
+32 9 269 14 06
annelies@insites-consulting.com

26. Thank you!
@InSites
marketing@insites-consulting.com
www.facebook.com/insitesconsulting
www.slideshare.net/InSitesConsulting