Businesses continually strive to innovate and capture consumers' attention in a rapidly evolving market. Understanding the objective behind launching a new product variant is crucial for businesses aiming to remain competitive and meet customer needs effectively. Whether it's expanding market reach, meeting evolving demands, or capitalizing on emerging trends, new variants offer businesses an opportunity to differentiate themselves and cater to a broader range of customers. 

One of the strategies companies is the introduction of new product variants. These variants aim to enhance customer experience, meet evolving demands, and stay ahead of the competition. By doing market research, our client will understand the acceptance level and product performance for the new prototype of their product. The consumer’s feedback is also can revise the product before its launch. Much further research, it’s to identify the driver attribute and get a recommendation on whether to launch this new formula. 

To achieve research objectives, we did several phases — qualitative research with product placement: 

• We Tested the Product with one competitor that has the same variant.
• Evaluated the products’ stimulus, which will be placed in their home and consumed at the regular moment.
• The respondents are unaware of the product's brand name to avoid the brand image during testing; a blinded system.
• One respondent tried the product for five days [1st Visit (Recruitment, BUMO (Brand Most Used Often), Placement 1st Product, Preparation & Making Product 1); Only Diary & 1st Product Test, 2nd Visit (1st Product Evaluation, Behavior while Consuming & Making Pudding, Placements 2nd Product, Preparation & Making Product 2); Only Diary & 2nd Product Test; 3rd Visit (2nd Product Evaluation, Preference)] and each respondent will evaluate two products sequentially. They will be asked to choose the most preferred product.

After doing several phases, we have some highlights, and we find that a new variant of our client's product is good to launch with any improvement and able to compete with a similar product. The first highlight is about campaign activity and response for an existing product. Being active in the offline event is a great option to do. Moreover, being involved in collaboration and doing campaigns on social media such as giveaways and digital TV drama as a sponsor the advertisement is another level to do nowadays. Then, how about the response to the existing product? For the A flavour, this variant is ready to go and will bring new tastes to the market; The improvement area is only on the appearance where consumers want to have it less something; Build another image of the client's product from previous. Besides that, the B flavour has to make several improvements before a launch; A specific taste and appearance are the main priority of the upgrading. 

The second is glance movement because the product has gained awareness but needs more on the usage level. Then, market competition for a specific flavour of the product — already familiar in the market right now, and there is an opportunity to serve the kind of the product — considering there is only one competitor who also actively shares the recipes/tips on social media. Then what if we compared it with our existing competitors? The result is that 54% of respondents chose the product competitors as their favourite because our client's product is too sweet, has less strong taste & aroma, and also less bright or unattractive colour product.

Then, customer acceptance of a new variant is the next highlight. The new flavour of the product shows that the prototype has delivered the taste very well, but the strong flavour is still lower than the competitor (83% → 95%). Besides that, the consumers still like our client's prototype because of the taste and texture, but they are concerned about the colour that is not bright and is a bit faded. More than that, the value added to the product is also a great point! 

Besides that, how about the product placement in the market? Our client's product has been placed with a similar product of another brand in modern trade and traditional market.

Another highlight is introducing the new product variant with a unique serving process that will be unique selling of the product.

There are several recommendations for our client to make — to have better engagement and sales. The first makes several improvements for Better Product Acceptance, such as adjusting the product's colour result to give the customer an excellent impression and increase the product's attractiveness. It would be great if do reformulation the more representative ingredients. In addition, creating an aroma as close to the original taste as possible will impact the product's uniqueness. Maintaining the like would be better accepted and increase curiosity about the product.

The second is to choose the Right Target Group to induce more trial and sales. Our client's product still has an opportunity to grab a new consumer from heavy users due to a positive response on overall taste, seeing the product is unique with good colour. Making some improvements will increase the intention to try the product. Even though the regular users still intend to purchase our client's creation rather than heavy and light users because they perceived the prototype already had a good colour.

And the last is to convince the target group with Attractive Activation by highlighting the USP of the product. It can start by communicating effectively about the product's practicality by collaborating with influencers, such as doing a demo to make the product with some creations. More than that put more highlights on the colour of the pudding that is similar to the original.