At the beginning of 2022 we started a Price Sentiment Tracker with one of our hygiene clients, allowing for a truly consumer centric view on the current economic challenges, and to ensure that the client’s business strategy stays ahead of the wave.

In this post, we will tap into what Price Sentiment Trackers are, what the client challenge was, and how Price Sentiment Trackers can help you.

What are Price Sentiment Trackers?

A Price Sentiment Tracker monitors and analyzes price perceptions of products or services across different channels. It also tracks (hence the name) purchasing behaviour, helps organisations to identify trends, and refines business strategies.

How do Price Sentiment Trackers work?

The trackers run in so called ‘waves’, with a core set of questions remaining static to make changes measurable. These questions focus on how consumers perceive prices for categories and specific products, and whether they have noticed any recent price changes. Hero brands/products and key competitor equivalents are included to identify winning strategies.

In addition, a Price Sentiment Tracker can explore consumers’ feelings about the state of the nation and can include open-ended questions to understand consumer attitudes and behaviour more deeply.

Example application

At the beginning of 2022, European consumers faced an increasing inflation. Our client in the hygiene business wanted to explore how price perceptions as well as specific product ranges and brands within the hygiene category evolved. Next to that, we investigated how consumer behavior within the category and close by categories developed over the year.

What we found is that consumers felt the need to cut down on essentials and to rely on home remedies. We used this information  to identify marketing and product strategies which consolidated brand loyalty and stabilized purchases. Our research helped the client to understand small consumer adjustments, which are hard to spot by “only” observing retail and consumer panel data.

How can Price Sentiment Trackers help you?

Price Sentiment Trackers are the right tool for you if you aim to explore price perceptions and related purchase/usage behavior over time, and to understand  the ‘why’ behind the consumer’s action. It uncovers emerging trends faster and in more detail than retail and consumer panel data. More specifically, the tool can also monitor perceptions and behaviors related to small brands/niche markets that are not covered by mainstream data bases.

Curious on how this can work for your brand? Let’s have a chat!