Tapping Consumer Insight

Yakult Netherlands B.V., a subsidiary of Yakult Honsha Co. (Japan), manufactures Yakult, a fermented milk beverage (also known as a probiotic) that is designed to improve health. The beverage is sold to millions of consumers in 26 countries, and Yakult Netherlands has seen sales double in that country over the last five years.

While business was good, the company wanted to maximize future growth potential, so it needed to understand how consumers responded to Yakult promotions and advertising campaigns.

On the plus side, the company was able to collect data from a number of sources: scanning data from supermarkets (provided by ACNielsen in a proprietary structure), SQL data (from Yakult's factory distribution centers), advertising exposure data (supplied via the Internet), consumer panel data (delivered in Excel by a German market research company), brand tracking data, demographic data, consumer profiles and specially-commissioned ad-hoc market surveys. On the downside, though, it was difficult to integrate the information from all of these sources and make sense of it.

In addition, besides wanting to integrate the multiple sources of data for quicker and more accurate analysis, Yakult wanted to: Understand consumer perceptions of probiotic drinks.

Share the analysis across departments to be able to better respond to market opportunities. Subsequently develop persuasive promotions to increase sales.

Enter Spotfire

In late 2004, the company began looking for technology vendors to assist in meeting these goals. Spotfire happened to coincidentally approached Yakult in early 2005 to provide information on its technology. Spotfire provides interactive, visual data analytics applications and services that allow users to improve operational performance and gain information advantages over competitors.

Spotfire's DecisionSite helps to identify consumer trends previously hidden in a number of information-rich, but diverse and incompatible, data sources. DecisionSite synthesizes data sources quickly and easily; makes patterns of consumer behavior apparent via its visuals; and allows the resulting analysis to be shared quickly with others in the company.

"One thing I particularly liked about Spotfire was that it is able to combine different data sources," reports Eddy van Hamersveld, national sales manager for Yakult Netherlands. "It allows me to get access to all of our data, including Excel sheets and the SQL database."

He was also sold on the fact that all of the information is available in graphics format. For example, in assessing consumer response, he can view pie charts, bar charts and maps of the Netherlands. He can also easily switch from examining responses from men to women, or switch from customers who drink the original Yakult to those who drink the light version.

"In fact, from the first moment I saw a demonstration, I was convinced this was the tool I needed," states van Hamersveld.

Some Surprising Results

DecisionSite provides the company with the information it needs to increase sales. The consumer preferences that are identified through the program improve the success of marketing campaigns, reducing the number of ineffective promotions and the resulting costs. For example, Yakult initially assumed that everyone who drank Yakult did so for health reasons. However, the results of one survey of 45,000 registered users of Yakult, which was processed through the segmentation analysis feature of DecisionSite, found that a large number of customers drank it primarily for the taste. In fact, the technology identified five different groups of consumers. A map of the Netherlands shows specifically where each of the clusters of consumers reside, each with its own purchasing motivation.

In another instance, the company tested its hypothesis that the reason sales flattened in the summer was because of increases in the temperature. DecisionSite analysis, however, identified the cause as consumers leaving the Netherlands for summer vacations.

Planning for the Future

Yakult has enjoyed increasing popularity and sales for the 11 years it has been available in the Netherlands. However, competition is increasing from other companies offering similar drinks. As a result, van Hamersveld plans to use DecisionSite to further refine Yakult's sales messages to consumers. "The program is becoming very useful in helping us compare our activities with our largest competitor, Actimel," he states. Actimel is a beverage manufactured by Groupe Danone. "In one graph on DecisionSite, I can get all of the major promotion activities, as well as advertising on television. I can then combine these with our sales information, which provides quick insight into what is happening in the market, not only in terms of how we are doing in the market but how we are doing compared to competitors."

Yakult is now planning to install the next version of DecisionSite, and it hopes to expand the use of the technology as a whole to other countries where the company does business. "I am very excited about the future possibilities," he concludes.