Research Background

  • An international daily supply brand wanted to define the ideal cleanser properties (performance, sensory) to guide product development in ongoing projects as well as in future initiatives, to convert competitor users to end users.

Research Methodology

  • 24 (2 hour) in-home interviews (interview + observing participants facial cleansing routines)
  • Product placement + diary
    • leave products to respondents to use for 7 days and working on online diary every day
    • Each day, the respondents will need to spend around 60 minutes to complete the online task
  • Follow-up phone discussions with all participants in step 2

Step 1 – one-on-one in-home interviews and each interview will last around 2 hours

Initial F2F (sitting room, 35min):

Introduction

  • Your skin: likes, dislikes, tensions, ideal kin. Deep dive into each mentioned attribute: What is it? How do you assess it?
  • Skin and seasonal changes
  • Skin and pollution
  • Focus on cleanser: brand, SKU, why chose, Nivea vs. others, mood board
  • For make-up users: products used, how remove, how satisfied?
    • Show skin products in bathroom and bedroom (10 min): check benefit and storage of each product
    • Face routine observation in bathroom / bedroom (30 min). Non users display first own routine, then given a ***** cleanser and asked to use spontaneously. If habit different morning / evening or with / without make up, all habits should be displayed. Make-up users are asked to apply the make up first and then show make up removal habit.
    • Technical measurements: Product amount used, time on each step (can be read from video), water amount (flow x time), water temperature, temperature in the bathroom, humidity in the bathroom
    • It is critical that the agency conducts a detailed analysis of the overall routine and especially the
      cleanser step, coming up with a pattern per group which allows to compare patterns across groups

Post usage F2F (sitting room, 40min)

  • Product and skin feel, look and smell before, during and after use. Support with pictures
    • How evaluate?
    • Likes/dislikes
    • Benefit
    • Consumer truth: how does the cleanser work?
    • Compared to other cleansers used, to soap…
    • Frequency: why not more odor?
    • If not mention: let’s talk about mildness
    • Males: Mood while cleansing (fun?): Which product do you have most fun using? Why? Clarify observations (ideally show the relevant cut in the film, only if not too Nme disrupting) • Deep dive cleanser (support with projective technique for visual associations, agency to propose):
  • Check routine variation across seasons
    New format exploration (sitting room, 15min): show new formats one other the other. They can open it, touch it, apply on the skin… whatever they want
  • Capture first reaction: first observe, then ask “what do you think?”
  • Benefit: “what do you expect this product to do for you?”

Step 2 – product replacement + online diary

  • Diary will be designed after interviews using the attribute and the language we heard from consumers (individualized). Non users get corresponding ***** sku (blinded)
  • Daily product use / routine (tick the box)
  • Intensity and satisfaction with key attributes, overall satisfaction, at fixed points during day (push reminder): for example, after getting up, immediately after morning face routine, late morning, before lunch, late afternoon, evening, before face routine, evening, before going to bed, after 2 hours, or every 2 hours
  • Key daily activities (tick the box, i.e. indoors, outdoors, city, nature, air condition, work, fun…)
  • Environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, pollution level), to be provided by agency
  • Selected interviews on the phone to clarify diary data after diary analysis (plan for 30min per panelist)

City Coverage

  • Shanghai, Beijing and Wuhan

Target Audience

  • Males aged 20-40
  • No skin allergies (std exclusion questions)
  • Dry shaving
  • Mixed China 1 and 2 (as per income)
  • Users (at least 1 week in P3M)
  • Make purchase decision
  • At least 1 per leg claim to be concerned about acne and / or blackheads
  • Currently using the products as per table below (at least 1 week in P1M)
  • Non-users (Track current cleansing habit (soap, shower gel, water…), no exclusion criteria)
  • Some degree of cosmetic involvement (does not reject cosmetic products in general)
  • 3 have never used in the past a cleanser to wash their face
  • 3 have used at some point in the past a cleanser, stopped using however at least 6 months ago

Deliverables

The deliverables for this project include the following:

  • Kick-off meeting with client’s team
  • Initial draft of screeners and discussion guide for step 1,  dairy template in both English and Simplified Chinese for step 2, and discussion guide for step 3
  • Weekly update on fielding progress
  • All project management and quality control
  • Draft of final analysis and presentation of recommendations
  • Overall final report and reports with detailed findings presented in PowerPoint presentation in English only.
  • Close collaboration and discussions with the client team to facilitate knowledge transfer and to discuss our recommendations

Research Results

The research helped our client:

  • Understand the detailed usage behavior, attitudes and needs in the face cleanser
  • Define consumer language of product attributes and identify gaps in those attributes for current products in the market
  • Identify gaps in those attributes for current products in the market
  • Understand detailed usage habit
  • Explore potential and benefit associations of new signals/sensory prototypes, a.o. “foaming”
  • Understand fun component of cleansing, current and ideal
  • Specifically for females: understand tensions and compensatory behaviour by make-up removal
  • Explore potential and benefit associations of new signals/sensory prototypes (foaming)
  • Identify the Winning Product by a Blinded Test