AI-Powered Segmentation & Strategy in a Shifting Beverage Economy
Key Outcomes
Cost Efficiency and Agility:
The project was delivered at a cost of $6,500 USD in under two weeks, compared to traditional methods that exceed $50,000 USD and take 8–12 weeks.
Enhanced Consumer Understanding:
Detailed insights were developed for six consumer segments, revealing motivations, emotional drivers, and changing perceptions, with ongoing real-time insights through live persona chats.
Strategic and Competitive Advantage:
A comprehensive insights report and workshop facilitated strategic alignment, while tailored marketing ideas and competitive awareness optimized engagement and pre-emptive actions.
Client Background: Navigating Economic Shifts in the Beverage Market
A leading beverage company operating across New Zealand sought to better understand local attitudes and behaviors toward Sparkling Soft Drinks (SSDs). With economic pressures reshaping consumer decisions, the team aimed to refine their marketing and product strategy to remain relevant and competitive in a rapidly evolving market.
Research Objective: Decoding Consumer Behavior Amidst Financial Pressures
With inflation and cost-of-living concerns top of mind for New Zealanders, the brand needed to understand how these conditions were influencing perceptions of value in the SSD category. The objective was to uncover evolving shopping behavior, emotional drivers, and new tensions or barriers impacting consumer choice—and to ensure marketing and product strategies aligned over the next 12–18 months.
AI-Powered Solution: Leveraging AI for Deep Consumer Insights and Engagement
Using Yabble’s Virtual Audiences, the insights team:
Generated rich consumer personas
through AI-driven segmentation based on New Zealand SSD buyers.
Contextualized those personas
with category-specific data to explore attitudes, motivations, and behaviors.
Interrogated each persona via live chat,
asking targeted business questions to uncover emotional and rational purchase drivers.
Created AI-generated persona imagery
to bring each segment to life and spark activation ideas across teams.
The Results: Strategic Insights and Competitive Edge Achieved Swiftly and Cost-Effectively
Delivered in under two weeks, this project culminated in:
- An 80-page strategic insights report mapping behaviors, values, channels, and emotional drivers.
- An interactive workshop to embed the findings and co-create strategies with key stakeholders.
- Ongoing access to live persona chat for 12 months, enabling continuous insights and follow-up exploration.
- Definition of six key SSD consumer segments in the NZ market, each with distinct preferences and priorities.
- Insights into how the economic climate is redefining value, brand loyalty, and treat-worthiness.
- Identification of shifted shopping behaviors, including channel and format preferences.
- Emotional insights, confirming the role of SSDs as moments of joy, nostalgia, and affordable indulgence.
- A view of the competitive landscape, with new threats emerging from private labels and price-led alternatives.
- Marketing activation ideas tailored to each segment’s mindset, occasion, and values.
The project was completed at a cost of $6,500 USD, compared to traditional segmentation approaches that typically take 8–12 weeks and cost upwards of $50,000 USD.
This case illustrates how Yabble’s AI-powered Virtual Audiences can help brands rapidly decode shifting consumer landscapes. The result was an actionable, humanized segmentation that empowered the marketing team to make confident, insight-led decisions—faster, smarter, and more affordably than ever before.
