Consider a Cambridge Group client, an office products company with a well-known brand of staplers. The company's topline was growing only modestly, their margins were being squeezed at retail, and to make matters worse they were on the verge of losing retail distribution for the category with the greatest growth opportunity: electric staplers. Further, fearing the threat of the expansion of the 'paperless office', the company was being pushed towards price wars with competitors, branded as well as private label, across all its products.

It was at this time that the company engaged The Cambridge Group to define, quantify and execute strategies to re-ignite profitable growth. To do this, the team developed a Demand Landscape^TM to define and describe the arenas of growth and profit in the category, and further leveraged Consumer Demand Analysis^TM to quantify the growth opportunity and means to attain it.

The Demand Landscape^TM revealed two segments of consumers who were highly demanding and highly involved with paper products/tools, and had the potential to be highly profitable for the company. These 'stapler aficionados' were folks who stapled at ten times the average level, and therefore valued "anti-jamming" above all other features. While one segment was differentiated in believing that there was 'a right tool for a job', they were unified in their willingness, even eagerness, to pay a premium for a stapler that could handle constant heavy-duty use without ever breaking down.

In addition, beyond the previously known stapler usage occasions – or need states – of everyday use and professional performance, the team uncovered an entirely new need around specialty stapling needs and crafts. The team had uncovered, and was able to develop products to deliver against, the 'anti-jamming' needs in the previous known need states, as well as create entirely new products to address 'aficionados' specialty stapling needs.

With products designed to address the specific needs of these 'stapler aficionados', the team could have pushed the product out through standard channels, leveraging their established go-to-market strategies and POS materials...had they done so they would have certainly left money on the table. Instead, the team worked diligently to update their merchandising and POS strategy to ensure that the Demand insights were fully incorporated and enacted. Specifically, the team reasoned that the shortfalls in their electric stapler business for example – products clearly designed to address the needs of these target consumers – were not due to the product, or even the pricing, but rather their lacking communication. The team re-designed the entire layout and signage of the stapler shelves to reflect customers' underlying purchase motivations and key benefits sought.

The first step was to organize the product shelves by usage occasion – the everyday, professional performance and specialty needs discussed earlier. Next, within each usage occasion, the company shifted its communications to focus on the specific benefits, such as non-jamming, that resonated with each consumer segment, rather than on basic product features that consumers found less motivating. Within each category, the least expensive staplers were promoted as delivering basic functionality at the lowest cost, mid-tier products as durable and reliable, and deluxe electrics as superior performers for 'elite' users.

Within months the sales of electric staplers doubled, and premium manual staplers, whose sales had also been flat, experienced strong double-digit growth. The new marketing model encouraged many customers to trade-up, the 'stapler aficionados' target (who now perceived the 10X price of electric staplers as a good value given the optimized POS) as well as other segments. The positive results were not just limited to the stapler company, the retailers' category sales grew more than 15% year over year, and they enjoyed significantly higher margins due to the trade-up behaviors. Ultimately, recognizing the value the company had brought to the category, key office products retailers including Office Max and Office Depot, gave the stapler company their well deserved Category Captaincy titles. The handful of retailers that had not enacted the team's recommendations suffered nearly 10% category losses at the same time...given the results of other retailers, they quickly adjusted their strategies. Proving once again that Demand insights are beneficial – and in fact drive significant growth – for manufacturers and retailers alike.