Business Issue
Our client, a leading international tobacco company, is developing smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes for Indonesian lower social class smokers (CD class).
They needed to understand Indonesian culture and market, the lives and values of lower-class smokers and the meaning of premium for this target market in order to best position and communicate their new offer.
Our Approach
We conducted multi-stage insighting approach involving 72 lower social class smokers from Jakarta and Medan. The 4-stage approach includes:
- Semiotic and cultural analysis - to obtain comprehensive insights on how the meaning of premium amongst lower social class changes overtime.
- Pre and post tasks diary via WhatsApp. With these tasks we captured participants’ daily life, their smoking habits, premium products/brands they purchased as well as their reactions during in-home product trial.
- Remote in-depth interviews. The interviews helped us dig deeper the meaning of premium for lower social class smokers, understand their views around aspirational brands and premium brands, also identify the meaningful and engaging message for communication.
- Mini focus groups. The sessions were focused on understanding the level of knowledge about smoking alternatives and testing some communication materials to find out the most appealing and relevant for local context.
Outcome and Project Impact
We obtained learnings to develop total product proposition, identified the emergent cultural definitions of premium and its impact on the brand role, and provided client with directions for messaging and communications (most resonating message for lower class).
