It’s rare that we roll out an off-the-rack bit of research for our clients, but this project required even more creativity than usual. Not only that, it had to be conducted with a rigor that could potentially stand up in court.
A global feminine hygiene brand was about to launch a competitive advertising campaign for its tampon. To make sure the claims were defensible, the client needed to know whether their tampons leaked less, more, or the same amount as their closest competitor.
We developed a double-blind experimental design in which research participants were given our client’s product and the competitor’s product to try out over a menstrual cycle.
And rather than relying on a standard questionnaire, we employed a customized smartphone app, where women not only recorded their impressions of product performance, but uploaded photos to validate their leakage reports. Compliance was monitored daily, to make sure the research data was reliable and of maximum utility to our client.
Care in the design and execution was crucial for substantiating our client’s advertising claim and withstanding a potential challenge from the competitor.