With ambitious growth plans, including expanding into dairy beverages and desserts, their Strategy & Consumer Insights team saw an urgent need to bring consumer feedback into the heart of product innovation. Historically relying on quantitative testing or R&D instincts, the company had limited exposure to qualitative research. One foundational project with Voxpopme changed that — unlocking clarity, consumer truth, and internal alignment through the power of video.
The Challenge: Confident Products, Unvalidated Assumptions
For years, the company’s innovation process followed a predictable path: develop a concept, test it, and launch with fingers crossed. Product ideas were often based on internal expertise or successful overseas SKUs, with little to no early-stage consumer input.
As they pursued aggressive growth goals, the cracks began to show:
- Consumer motivations were misunderstood. Frozen yogurt, for example, was positioned as a health-forward product. But when they tested the concept using Voxpopme, consumers described it as an indulgence — not a healthy swap for ice cream.
- Internal assumptions were rarely challenged. Teams were confident that full-cream ingredients would be a major selling point. The reality? Many consumers just wanted a $5 frozen treat that tasted good, regardless of the dairy credentials.
- Empathy for the consumer was missing. Without hearing directly from shoppers, product decisions often lacked context or emotional resonance.
“We weren’t doing any foundational qualitative research. We had the what, but none of the why.”
The Turning Point: A Frozen Yogurt Study That Sparked a Shift
In late 2024, the company ran a small-scale qualitative study with Voxpopme focused on frozen yogurt perceptions. The results were transformational.
- Exposed a critical misconception: The belief that frozen yogurt was seen as a health product was flipped on its head. Consumers treated it like a sweet, indulgent reward — undermining the intended positioning.
- Revealed internal blind spots: The team realised that product attributes they believed were key, like premium ingredients, weren’t always valued by the audience they were targeting.
- Elevated two voices: Just two video interviews from the project became internal rallying points. They were replayed repeatedly in team meetings to remind stakeholders why listening to consumers directly matters.
“Those two clips became my go-to whenever I needed to challenge product-led thinking.”
The Solution: Embedding Consumer Voice with Voxpopme
Following the success of the initial project, the team committed to using Voxpopme as the foundation for more exploratory and category expansion research.
- Started with the why: The platform enabled them to conduct foundational qual before developing concepts, helping them understand needs, behaviours, and emotional drivers in unfamiliar categories like dairy beverages.
- Built empathy at scale: Stakeholders could see and hear real people describe how and why they made choices, leading to more emotionally intelligent decisions.
- Challenged assumptions with evidence: Video insights gave the team a credible, human-centred way to push back on entrenched beliefs — using real consumer language.
- Aligned stakeholders: Short showreels created from Voxpopme interviews became powerful tools for internal influence, helping product, marketing, and strategy teams align around real consumer priorities.
“It’s helping us shift from ‘we believe our product is great’ to ‘do consumers actually care about these attributes?’”
The Results: A New Innovation Mindset
With Voxpopme, the company has:
- Replaced guesswork with insight-led decision-making — consumer voices now shape product strategy from the earliest stages.
- Shortened the distance between product teams and real consumers — video feedback brings authentic human context into every conversation.
- Validated the role of qualitative research in shaping strategy — not just testing ideas, but informing them from the ground up.
- Gained tools to explore new markets with clarity and confidence — the team is now using Voxpopme to guide new category entry points in dairy desserts and beverages.
“This is the kind of work that changes how an organisation thinks. And it started with just two videos.”