Understanding the elements of value driving recommendations for a consumer durable giant

Challenge

A Japanese multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Japan and has grown to become one of the largest Japanese electronics producers. The firm designated India as the regional hub to drive growth and build deeper inroads into the fast emerging Asiatic, Middle Eastern and Western economies. Starting from India, the company wanted to build its knowledge of how to target consumers for its various consumer durables categories, namely air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. They wanted to use a 30 EOV (Elements of Value) framework across various markets in India to conduct a top down NPS benchmarking to understand its relative standing vis-à-vis the competition in the Indian market. Added to this, they wanted to gauge the standing of the brand on the EOV framework, determine the drivers of NPS and identify strategic improvement areas across various durable categories.

Approach

We conducted a deep dive into this 30 EOV framework to understand the ways in which each of these elements play out for an individual – identifying the statements / attributes defining each of these EOVs, divided into 4 levels, namely functional elements, emotional elements, life changing elements and social impact elements. We conducted face to face surveys with customers across 3 types of consumer durables (fridges, washing machines and air conditioners), evaluating all 30 EOVs against competitor players. The sample was spread across all four zones in Metro, Tier 1, Tier 2 cities, with a total of 2500 interviews covered in each category with 2400 consumers and 100 trade partners.

Impact

As a result of the survey, the company was been able to determine NPS score to benchmark themselves against the competition for the refrigerator, air conditioning and washing machine category and were able to identify the EOVs that are driving the brand’s recommendations and its positioning.

Cognitive Research was instrumental in understanding their status quo, identify the key drivers of NPS and strategic improvement areas across refrigerator, air conditioners and washing machine categories which helped serve their consumers better.