CASE STUDY

American Beverage Association
BACKGROUND

With an economic impact of $189 billion, the U.S. beverage industry plays an important role in the American economy. The American Beverage Association, the leading voice for the industry, commissioned Public Opinion Strategies to help develop a messaging and audience framework for Mixify™, a national consumer awareness and engagement program sponsored by Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper. The program’s goal was to encourage teens and families to balance their calories by moderating what they consume.

Our Work: Public Opinion Strategies partnered with advertising and public relations agency GMMB and YPulse, a research firm focused on Millennials, to develop an extensive public opinion research strategy. We organized and moderated a series of focus groups with “Community Moms,” those moms who are especially active in their communities. We performed extensive qualitative research around the concepts of balance and moderation and understanding the concept of “balance” in a teenager’s life, including nutrition. The research revealed moms feel beleaguered and without support when trying to help their teen’s effort to find balance in their life. The research indicated Community Moms would welcome the major soft drink companies’ efforts to help make it “cool” to persuade teens to balance what they eat, drink and do.

Together with the creative team, we also executed online message testing surveys and online ad testing surveys to help the client identify the message and creative content most likely to persuade teens and their families. Our strategy cut across geographic, demographic and income lines to ensure the client received a holistic view of sentiment among teens and their families.

Results: We garnered actionable insights on consumer perceptions about beverages and calorie consumption. In partnership with the client’s creative team, we delivered a comprehensive Mixify™  brand portfolio, message, target audience research and creative elements to bolster the national awareness campaign, which launched in October 2014. The ratings for the TV creative were among the strongest we have recorded for any advocacy effort.

Public Opinion Strategies