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FINAL RESEARCH AND STRATEGY REPORT
Prepared for: ADV 509
By:
Sydney Trager, Rachel Hipschman and Kyun Bae
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary...............................................................................................4 Situation Analysis..................................................................................................5-‐11 Study Purpose.........................................................................................................12 Methodology............................................................................................................13-‐15 Data Analysis...........................................................................................................16 Research Findings.....................................................................................................17-‐24 Creative Strategy........................................................................................................25-‐29 Information Sources......................................................................................................30-‐31 Measurement Instruments.............................................................................................32-‐33
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Problem
Tai Pei is currently trying to reach a new target audience of Millennials, a group that has
their own thoughts and ideas when it comes to health. While past promotions might be have
been successful for their previous target, this new target needs to be spoken to in a new and
innovative way. In order for Tai Pei to connect with this audience they need to do further
research to figure out what values and ideas this group holds when it comes to health and how
they can de-‐stigmatize the frozen food category so that it appeals to this younger, health
focused generation.
The Research
In order to find the “why behind the what” we conducted nine one-‐on-‐one intercept
interviews with college students ages 18 to 22. We recorded these interviews and compared
and contrasted how each of our participants defined the term “healthy” and what this term
meant to them. Through our research we found that our participants defined healthy as a meal
that is balanced and includes color and variety. We also found that many of our participants
were primarily concerned with how their food was prepared. They spoke about take out and
restaurants being unhealthy because they had no idea what was going into their food. This
insight lead us to our big idea.
The Strategy
Our big idea is that in college, there is very little that students can control. However,
food is the one thing they do have control over. While their schedules and activities are often
out of their control, the food they choose to put in their bodies is not. From this we came up
with our tagline: “With Tai Pei, the fork is in your hands”. We plan on using this copy on social
media ads, as this environment is where Millennials spend a lot of their time and Tai Pei needs
to grow its digital presence. We can also see these ads running in more traditional spots such as
on TV.
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SITUATION ANALYSIS
Tai Pei, a frozen food company that prides itself on its authentic variety of frozen Asian
entrees and snacks, has a lot to offer the frozen food category as a whole. Its products are
affordable and readily available at grocery stores and mass retailers and can be prepared
quickly and efficiently in a matter of minutes. Tai Pei offers its consumers an easy meal solution
that can be best enjoyed alone, with family or while watching Netflix. Its “real, clean
ingredients” have the potential to appeal to those who may be weary of the frozen food
category as a whole and its health benefits, or lack thereof. While Tai Pei’s current social
following and promotional content is quite scarce, the brand has a great opportunity to re-‐
launch itself as an easy and affordable meal and snack time option as it shifts its target
audience from married 30-‐somethings to a more social and mobile engaged Millennial
audience.
Product
• Tai Pei offers many “Asian single serve frozen entrees, snacks and appetizers.” 1 • Tai Pei provides Millennials with an opportunity to enjoy the “discovery” process. 2 • Tai Pei provides current consumers (like the “Katy” persona) an opportunity to try new
flavors and cuisines as that is something they are interested in.3 • Tai Pai claims that their products are made with “real, clean ingredients.”4 • Tai Pei offers customers variety as there is a wide range of dishes included in their line
as well as convenience as the product can be microwaved and ready to eat in minutes.5 • According to Tai Pei’s YouTube channel video description box, “Tai Pei has also
introduced a health focused line of products called Tai Pei Asian Garden. These entrées offer people delicious low calorie options like Sesame Chicken, Spicy General Tso's Chicken and Ginger Chicken. Each meal is only 310 calories.”6
Price
• Because current consumers like “Katy” only cook dinner for their families 2-‐4/week, Tai Pei might offer a cheaper dinner alternative for the days that “Katy” does not cook and might order take out instead.3
• There are links to coupons posted on Tai Pei’s Facebook.7
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• Customers may sacrifice their health values as Tai Pei’s nutritional facts are not the best. For example, a serving of Tai Pei’s General Tso’s Chicken has 10g of fat, 450 calories and 24g of protein, not to mention an extensive ingredients list.8
Place
• A general search for the “Appetizer Variety Pack” in NJ on the Tai Pei website shows that the product is sold at Walmart and Shoprite.9
• Consumers can interact with and learn more about the product on its website. They can specifically use the “Where to Buy” tab to locate Tai Pei retail locations nearest to them. 9
• Tai Pei’s largest social following is on Facebook with 122,410 followers, it’s followers on other platforms are quite small with 903 Twitter followers and 159 Pinterest followers. The company does not have an Instagram. Currently, Facebook would be the most appropriate location for Tai Pei to interact with customers as this platform has the largest social following. 10
Promotion
• Tai Pei’s Facebook page includes a lot of ads and articles associating Tai Pei with Netflix/a night in. 11 The brand posts Forbes articles about Netflix and associates itself with “National Lazy Day.” 11
• A single video commercial exists on Tai Pei’s YouTube channel. It is unclear if this video ran on TV or not. 12
• Tai Pei’s current tagline is, “Good fortune in every box” according to their website. 13 STRENGTHS Why?
Tai Pei is convenient
Since Tai Pei is a precooked frozen meal, the product can appeal to consumers who are lazy or not able to cook at home often. Because Tai Pei products are “on the go” products, they are very convenient for Tai Pei’s current target audience, the busy mom.3 Also, their new target audience, Millennials, prefer purchasing food in single-‐serve packaging or ready to eat meals so the product caters to them also. Millennials also exhibit spontaneous purchase habits.34
Tai Pei is a targeted food market One of Tai Pei’s biggest strengths is that it carries Chinese cuisine. Their food market is very specific and narrowed down. This will
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appeal to specific groups of people who enjoy Chinese or Asian Cuisine. Moreover, their new target audience, Millennials ages 18 to 25, prefer diversity and more international cuisine.20 So, Asian style food, like Tai Pei can be valuable for them and can attract this new target audience.
Restaurant-‐inspired experience
Tai Pei pursues a “restaurant inspired experience” that can be enjoyable at home. This is one of their strengths because it is one of the strongest characteristics that Tai Pei offers to consumers. These restaurant inspired cuisines can also benefit Millennials because wanting to eat out is a primary form of entertainment for them.20 Tai Pei products have the potential to replace the restaurant inspired feeling with eating out.
Tai Pei’s new ingredients
Tai Pei products will be different in 2017. They will not include preservatives, artificial colors and flavors. This is important and valuable to consumers because consumers’ lifestyle trends are just simply looking for brands that offer real, genuine and honest values for their products.18
WEAKNESSES Why?
Communication with consumers
Even though Tai Pei has been active with posting on social media in order to interact with consumers, the number of followers on Tai Pei’s social media is quite small compared to its competitors, mentioned above in “Promotion.” Moreover, the official Tai Pei account on YouTube has only one Tai Pei commercial from three years ago with 4,451 views,35 while their competitor brand Lean Cuisine has several commercials including a recent commercial posted 1 week ago and reached 1,270,500 views.36 This is important because not only is peer to peer recommendation the key to consumer purchase behavior since it shares their experience, but also consumers can
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rely on brands’ communication with them.37
Costs to consumers’ time and health concerns
Consumers actually need to take action and spend time to get to the grocery stores in order to engage with the Tai Pei products. Also, consumers will have to decide whether they are giving up on their health concerns and choose to eat Tai Pei because it is not as healthy as fresh, unfrozen foods. Therefore, Tai Pei can lack value for some consumers.
People are not aware of Tai Pei
As mentioned in “Place,” Tai Pei products are substantially placed and accessible in big hypermarket chains (Walmart, Target) and local grocery stores (Price Chopper, Kroger) throughout the nation. However, consumers are not really aware of Tai Pei. This is because Tai Pei is not advertising enough in the field. As is mentioned in Weaknesses, “Communication with consumers,” Tai Pei’s official account on YouTube has only one commercial from three years ago. Therefore, it is very hard for consumers to communicate and be aware of Tai Pei.
Tai Pei is frozen food
Tai Pei’s major weakness could be considered the fact that it is in the category of frozen food. Due to the fact that these products are frozen food, this will make it hard to reach their new target audience, Millennials, because they are concerned about origin, freshness and the ethics of their food.20
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OPPORTUNITIES Why?
Healthy life style trends
Consumers are now seeking foods that can benefit their bodies and minimize the risk of disease.38 This can be a good opportunity in the frozen food market industry. Frozen food can amplify their clean, healthy and nutritional ingredients to appeal to their target audience because Millennials value health and wellness.24
Consumers continue to consume frozen foods
Frozen products continue to be consumed by consumers because of their convenience, versatility, and affordable price.39 Also, the frozen food industry has the greatest opportunity in terms of growth in all natural and organic.40 Therefore, frozen products can appeal to Millennials.
Informative packaging builds brand trust
Innovative and informative packaging can appeal to the consumers because consumers want more information on their packages.14 If the frozen food industry provides consumers with simple, wholesome and “you-‐can-‐read-‐them” ingredients, those items will be likely to become part of the American diet.41 Also, the quality of packaging plays an important role in building brand trust between consumers.42
Frozen food can be an alternative to fresh and pre-‐made foods
Frozen foods can be beneficial to consumers, because unlike fresh and pre-‐made food, “frozen foods are kept below 9.5°C to prevent the growth of microorganisms, which helps to slow down the process of decomposition…keep the food for longer time period.”43 This is the beauty of frozen foods that fresh or pre made food cannot provide. Moreover, in reality, some frozen foods usually contain fewer preservatives because the temperature prevents decomposition.44
THREATS Why?
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Frozen food is not fresh
The frozen food category itself is not fresh food. As is mentioned in Opportunities, “Healthy life style trends” above, consumers are aware of what they eat due to healthy dieting trends. Consumers continue to seek natural and fresh ingredients in order to keep their life healthy.
Growth of pre-‐made foods
There is growing competition between frozen food and prepared food. Prepared and fast food cuisines are offered at the same time in many grocery stores.41 This is definitely a threat to the frozen food industry because these prepared foods can be an alternative to frozen food.
Negative image of frozen foods
The main problem that frozen food faces is its preexisting image. Not all of frozen food is unhealthy to consumers. As is mentioned right above in Threats, “Growth of pre-‐made foods,” some frozen foods contain fewer preservatives than other food. However, younger generations, like Millennials, do not perceive frozen as healthy.44 Since, young consumers identify fresh as being healthy, they generate the notion of frozen foods as negative.
Young consumers are willing to pay premium for health benefits
Nowadays, young people are very concerned about their health and they are aware of what they eat. The research shows that there is an increasing amount of consumers who are willing to pay premium for their health benefits.38 Due to the fact that consumers are willing to pay premium for themselves, this can be a threat to the frozen food industry because young consumers who seek natural and clean foods do not spend money on frozen food because of the unhealthy image that frozen foods has, as mentioned directly above.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
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Lean Cuisine is the single serve entrees category leader with $732,087,936 annual dollar
sales as of the last 52 weeks, ending August 7, 2016. 25 In comparison, Tai Pei is ranked in the
bottom four amongst these categories when it comes to dollar sales. 25 Lean Cuisine also leads
in the Asian single serve entrees brand ranking with annual dollar sales of the last 52 weeks,
ending August 7, 2016 at $23,086,072. 29 Here, Tai Pei is ranked third when it comes to dollar
sales, with Healthy choice sitting in between the two. 29 While Tai Pei has a long way to go when
it comes to dominating the frozen food category as a whole, it has a more realistic possibility of
dominating the Asian Single Serve Entrees category. Tai Pei is positioned as a very unique brand
as it offers a very specific cuisine choice, unlike Lean Cuisine, which offers a wide variety of
products, and cuisines. 30
When it comes to media spend, Marie Callendar’s , another brand competitor, has the
highest 2015 spend in the category at 33% according to Kantar Media. 31 Stouffers isn’t far
behind with 32%.31 It is also noted that “health oriented” brands spend more on media in the
category. 31 If Tai Pei increases its media spend it will have to keep in mind that its competitors
are taking this approach. Tai Pei must be careful when advertising, as it has the potential to
come off very unhealthy when compared to other brands. In order to be successful Tai Pei
might consider focusing on its lack of additives and preservatives and how it might be healthier
than an alternative dinner option, like take out. 5
Stouffer’s, the second leader in the singles serve entrees category, is another
competitor that shouldn’t be overlooked. 29 In addition to the brand’s high sales numbers, their
social media following on Facebook and Twitter are well above others in the category. 10 This
gives them a competitive advantage when it comes to engaging with their consumers.
Additionally, much of the content on their Facebook feed is focused on their healthy
ingredients. 32 Tai Pei could learn a lot from Stouffer’s current social strategy.
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STUDY PURPOSE
While we have learned many valuable things about Tai Pei such as its place in the market
and the feelings and values of its target consumers through initial exploratory research and the
research Tai Pei provided, primary research is needed to answer the ‘why’ behind many of these
findings. Why are millennials trying to be healthy? Why do they value nutrition in their food?
Are there overall themes when it comes to health for Millennials or is health a very personal
topic? Because we are focusing on the definition of the term “healthy”, our research has to be
strongly focused on the feelings and associations our participants correlate with this word. We
need to talk to this target group on a personal level to discover why they consider some foods to
be healthy and others not. We are focused on figuring out the “why” behind the “what”. We will
not be using secondary research because this type of research will not allow us to explore the
feelings and attitudes of our audience. We know from the brief provided that this group is
focused on health, but we can only figure out what this really means by speaking directly with
this target audience.3
By doing primary research we hope to uncover the similarities and differences in what
young Millennial’s beliefs are and compare these findings to Tai Pei’s focus on health. We hope
to obtain quality information that leads to valuable insights, insights that couldn’t necessarily be
made by just looking at the information provided by Tai Pei. Once we discover what “healthy”
means to Millennials we can then help Tai Pei to better craft its messaging to hit on the points
and feelings that resonate with them. This will allow Tai Pei to create impactful marketing,
which will in turn drive sales.
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METHODOLOGY
The word “healthy” is often associated with various types of lifestyles, eating habits and
definitions, all extremely personal to each and every individual. How one person defines healthy
might greatly vary from how another defines the term. In addition, their own belief of what
“healthy” is strongly influenced by their surroundings such as their families, schools, peers,
media, etc. The meaning of “healthy” itself is a very broad term that is interpreted differently by
different individuals depending on the specific experiences they have had and what has
influenced them. However, it is very interesting to see how this simple term can constitute a
variety of meanings to people and how there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ definition. Since “healthy”
is a personal and ambiguous term, our group wanted to investigate how Millennials individually
defined the term “healthy” and what it means to be “healthy” to them personally.
In order to discover what health meant to individuals in this target audience, we chose
primary research and intercept interviews as our method. We truly believe that doing intercept
interviews will produce better solutions for Tai Pei because we can engage with our participants
by asking personal, abstract or open-ended questions that cannot be done through secondary
research. We decided not to use secondary research as our method in this project because we
mainly focused on gaining personal definitions and beliefs from our interviewees rather than
broad, general research from Millennials as a whole.
Our intercept interviews were conducted during the Thanksgiving break and for a short
amount of time after. Each of us was responsible for doing three interviews, giving us a total of
nine interviews to analyze. We chose our friends as our participants by using non-probability
convenience sampling because it was the most realistic for our study, due to a limitation of time
and resources. Our nine interviews consisted of 5 females and 4 males between the ages of 18 to
22 and currently college students. The reason why we specifically chose college students from
18 to 22 as our participants is because they are not only our convenience sample, but also
because we strongly believe that college students face unique challenges that frozen food can
help solve such as a busy life schedule that is often out of our target’s control. We asked our
friends randomly to participate if they were available for our interviews. All nine interviews
ranged from approximately thirteen minutes to forty-eight minutes. Some interviewees went into
depth with their answers while others briefly answered the questions we asked them. We
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conducted these interviews in convenient locations that our interviewees felt to be most
comfortable and that had limited background noise, such as houses and apartments, Bird Library,
and classrooms in Newhouse.
Our group decided to video record our interviewees with their spoken consent. This was
the most crucial part of our project because video recordings allowed us to go back and check to
see what our participants had expressed was their definition of “healthy” when analyzing our
data, and also permitted us to see what kinds of body language, facial expressions, verbal or
nonverbal cues and any other forms of communication that were helpful in the process of
analyzing the data. We were also able to share our three interviews with each other and look for
reoccurring body language. We asked our nine participants for their verbal consent to being
filmed before the interviews began, and they were assured that these recordings would only be
used for class project purposes. Seven of our participants agreed to be filmed while two of our
interviewees preferred not to be video recorded because they would rather be anonymous.
Instead, we obtained permission from them to voice record them, which also helped us in terms
of the analysis process.
We asked each participant 18 questions that mainly revolved around defining the term
“healthy.” Overall these interview questions were designed to investigate how these participants
viewed or defined the term “healthy” on a personal level. For example, our first few questions
dealt with our participants’ eating habits, easing our participants into discussing health. We
didn’t want to ask about health right off the bat because we were interested to see if any
participants would start talking about the term themselves without us prompting them, which
many of them did. Later questions were focused on which kinds of foods our participants
considered to be healthy or not and why they would consider them to be healthier than other
kinds of foods. More detailed information about the purpose of designing these interview
questions and how we analyzed responses from these questions will be provided in the Data
Analysis section below.
Included in our 18 questions, were two kinds of interactive questions. One of the
interactive questions involved presenting our interviewees with 19 word cards that were both
positively and negatively associated with nutrition and health. We then asked our participants to
sort these terms into two categories, one being “positive” and the other being “negative”. By
doing this we hoped to get a general sense of what terms Tai Pei might consider using in their
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advertising. Most importantly, we included the word “frozen” in our word cards in order to see
which category our participant put it in. Another interactive question was our last question where
we presented three picture of chicken fried rice, each in a different location. One was a picture of
the meal in a take-out box, one in a pan, and one in Tai Pei packaging. We then presented the
pictures to our participants one at a time and asked if the meal seemed healthy to them and why.
The purpose of this exercise was to see if the way they define healthy correlated with the
location of the food. By asking why our participants considered each picture healthy or
unhealthy we were hoping to get further insight into their personal definition of health and
compare why they said a food was healthy with the definition of healthy they provided towards
the beginning of the interview.
Our participants were asked to fill out a survey after the interviews, which asked five
questions regarding age, gender, if they were a college student or not, their ranking of food and
which food they were most likely to eat on daily basis, as is illustrated in the Measurement
Instruments section. We did this as a post interview survey because we did not want the survey
topic and questions to influence results.
It was extremely important for us to keep in mind that our data should not be ambiguous.
Therefore, we asked our own questions throughout the research process that were not included
on the discussion guide when a participant brought up an interesting point. We made sure that
our participants’ responses were clear. We looked for specific words that respondents provided
that were confusing or too vague and we tried to clarify the ambiguousness from the beginning
during the interviews by asking probing questions such as “What do you mean by that?” and
“Why is that?” We also made sure not to push any of our own personal beliefs about health and
frozen foods on our interviewees. We asked questions with a non-judgmental tone so that all of
our participants felt comfortable sharing their true feelings and beliefs.
Through our primary qualitative research method of in-depth interviews, we were able to
obtain a deep understanding of what it really means to be healthy to the people we talked to. Our
findings led to some compelling insights.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Since we focused mainly on in-‐depth interviews as our method for our research, our
goal was to search for overarching themes in our interviewees’ responses and put together an
overall definition of the term “healthy” based on our participants’ responses. Establishing
themes and the meaning of “healthy” for each individual, as well as understanding a general
theme, was crucial for us because these findings not only addressed the relevant issues and
problems that Tai Pei has, but also led to compelling insights that Tai Pei can use to shape a
new campaign for its newly proposed target.
As one of our analysis procedures, we analyzed our participants’ reactions and
responses during the interviews. While we were interviewing, we made sure that we took notes
on our interviewees’ reactions (such as facial expressions) that stood out, or any other kinds of
communicative gestures. We compared our notes with group members and discussed our
findings together as a team. Also, since we video recorded our participants’ interviews as one of
our methodologies, we were able to go back and observe physical, verbal and nonverbal
responses among all nine of our participants.
During the course of observing our interview clips, we were able to find notable
patterns. These variations in respondents’ reactions, emotions, expressions and body language
in the moment were valuable resources for our research because these measured responses
played an important role in understanding our participants’ opinions. Furthermore, when we
were going over recorded interview files, we were specifically looking for a sense of
embarrassment and shame when our participants were talking about health, or, rather, a sense
of pride. For example, we tried to see if eye contact was avoided, if there were any signals or
significant gestures, or nonverbal cues. In this way, we were able to engage better with our
respondents’ data by understanding the various tones, moods, and verbal or nonverbal
communications they used.
Another data analysis method that we included was examining our participants’ word
choice. We were interested in seeing if our interviewees talked about health in the first or third
person, which revealed if our participants personally relate to the term “healthy” or view it as a
word associated with others. We also analyzed our participants’ willingness to be video
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recorded because not wanting to being filmed meant that either they were embarrassed of
their health or being “healthy” was a secretive aspect of their lives.
We also concentrated on what words came up the most when these respondents talked
about health. While we were going through the nine interviews, we transcribed our
interviewees’ responses in order to find and pull key quotations. Then, we compared all the
similarities and differences of our transcriptions and underlined and highlighted the key words
that came up the most that were associated with the word “healthy” and “unhealthy” as well as
marked keywords that were unexpected and compelling enough to contribute to an interesting
finding. By discovering keywords that associate with the word “healthy” and “unhealthy” and
comparing the similarities and differences between all of our interviews, we found not only that
there were notable repetitions of words that were associated with “healthy” and “unhealthy”
among the participants, but also got a stronger sense of how reliable the data was due to its
consistency. In addition, we created two word clouds under the categories of “healthy” and
“unhealthy” based on the keywords. This allowed us to visualize what our respondents
associated with health as well.
Moreover, it was definitely important to analyze in what context the word “frozen” food
was used. We focused on if our participants associate the word with positive or negative
connotations. We strongly believed that this data was needed in order to get a better sense of
how these young Millennials think about frozen food. We discovered these findings by
analyzing their reactions and expressions when we used the word “frozen.” Also, as we
previously explained in the Methodology section, we analyzed if our participants associated
frozen food positively or negatively in one of the interactive interview questions that had 19
cards.
Our group collected all of our nine post-‐screening surveys and compared them to each
other during the analysis process. We realized that doing post-‐screening surveys was not
necessary because responses on the post-‐screening surveys were very similar to the interviews.
Despite the fact that we thought post-‐screening surveys were pointless, they were still valuable
because they allowed us to compare the responses between the surveys and the actual
interviews to see if their answers were consistent or inconsistent.
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Our group also focused on analyzing our participants’ responses based on our interview
guide questions that are illustrated in the Measurement Instruments section. The main purpose
of asking interview questions 1 to 4 was to get a better sense of who our participants are. We
started our questions on a broader, general level. These questions helped us to learn more
about their eating habits on a daily basis, which later helped us to figure out if they think
they’re healthy based on what they’re eating. By asking these questions before our health
focused questions we were able to avoid bias in our participants’ answers.
Questions 5 through 8 were designed to uncover the meaning of our participants’
definition of “healthy.” These questions encouraged us to establish the idea of how important a
role “health” played in their lives and discovered the factors that might challenge them when it
came to health. Also, these kinds of questions were a strategic way of drawing responses in an
organic way. Our purpose of asking questions 9 and 10 was not only to see if our respondents’
diet or health contained restrictions or rules, but also to find out how they developed or
learned about health trends and issues.
We then narrowed down our questions to more specific questions in order to learn and
analyze our participants’ eating habits that they associated with their own definition of
“healthy.” Questions 11 through 14 dealt with discerning how participants associate being
healthy with certain ingredients and places and what those ingredients and places have to do
with their actual sense of being healthy. Then, questions 15 to 17 allowed us to see if our
participants were actually practicing a healthy lifestyle and to find out if their general meals
they enjoyed were healthy meals. Lastly, question 18 allowed us to analyze if the location of the
food affects our participants’ preferences and attitudes toward the product, whether positively
or negatively.
During the analysis process, we tried our best to not selectively look for patterns of
responses that resonates with our preconceived notions, but rather tried to understand our
interviewees’ behaviors and attitudes toward the subject. Most importantly, due to our small
sample size, our purpose was not to make generalizations about the larger population.
However, we tried to find notable patterns and findings that are relevant in relation to
Millennials’ definition of health that can be useful findings for future Tai Pei campaigns.
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Lastly, our group evaluated our analysis by re-‐examining our data. We determined
which themes or responses to use or not to use for our study on Tai Pei. There were several
insightful findings that we thought were compelling enough, but we had to get rid of responses
because we considered them irrelevant to our overarching theme that had to do with defining
“healthy.” We were able gather stronger data by getting rid of these outliers, which we believe
increases the validity of our study. Through these tactics, we believed that we gathered for Tai
Pei relevant and accurate data that reflects real Millennials’ trends and patterns regarding how
they define the term “healthy.”
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RESEARCH FINDINGS
1. Definition of Healthy
Our main research question focused on how Millennials define the word ‘healthy’. We
knew going into this project that this term had a wide variety of definitions and we
wanted to see if Tai Pei’s decision to say that their product is made with “real, clean
ingredients" would resonate with their newly proposed target audience.4 Below are
some quotes on how our interviewees defined this vague term.
Key Quotes:
o “Health is all about balance”
o “Something can’t be fresh and not be healthy”
o “Well balanced, it’s not all carbs…”
o “When I am in the dining hall, I try to include at least one vegetable dish in my
meal…”
o “Keeping a balanced diet, it’s not all like meat and carb”
o “Healthy just means to me, like being balanced”
o “I try to vary things up”
o “You can understand what’s in it”
o “It’s primarily made up of fruit, vegetables, meat”
o “My parents taught me at like a really young age to always put color in your diet”
We put some of the repeated keywords we found into a word cloud to give a visual
representation of our findings:
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After analyzing our findings, we can conclude that the words ‘balanced’ or ‘variety’
might resonate more with Millennials than ‘clean’ and ‘balanced’. When we showed
our interviewees pictures of the same Chinese stir-‐fry dish in take out containers, a
home environment and in a Tai Pei box, many of them commented on the fact that
the dish we showed them was ‘colorful’ and that the meal looked balanced because it
included a starch, meat and vegetables.
2. Definitions of Unhealthy
We were also curious to see how Millennials defined unhealthy foods for comparison
sake. We wanted to know what qualities they thought of when they thought of
unhealthy and how Tai Pei might work to avoid some of these thoughts and ideas in
its copy.
Key Quotes:
o “I was taught to never eat two or more starches…or food that is really alike, like
food of the same kind and you’re having it consistently”
o “A whole list of ingredients, and most of them are like chemicals I never heard of
before”
o “There’s that little bit of like I’m not quite sure what’s going into this”
o “Anything that has preservatives”
o “Like the meat doesn’t seem like it’s real”
o “Really big portions”
o “Stuff that’s fried or has like a lot of sauce in it”
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o “Chemicals or preservatives”
Again, we made a word cloud:
We can conclude that Tai Pei might want to avoid talking about chemicals and
preservatives in its advertising, or maybe talk about how their newly developed
product won’t have these things as these are main concerns for their new target
audience. These findings also confirmed that variety and balance were important to
this target, as many interviewees defined unhealthy as eating foods of the same kind
or meals that aren’t balanced. This finding really made sure that our previous findings
were valid.
3. Preparation
One key finding we discovered was that our target audience cares where their food is
coming from and who is preparing it. Many of our interviewees mentioned that they
are weary of both frozen foods and take out because they don’t really know where
the food is coming from and what is being added to it. One interviewee kept
mentioning the large amount of oils and butter that restaurants add to meals while
another mentioned that they don’t like restaurants because many people touch the
food.
Key Quotes:
• “…Even if you, like go out, and you think you’re having like a healthy meal, they
do like cook it in oils and stuff, so, obviously the healthiest you’re going to get is at
home.”
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• “I feel like I don’t know where frozen foods come from, I don’t know the
preparation they’ve had before, slash the chemicals they had to put in them to make
them good to be frozen for longer periods of time, so, it’s kind of suspicious.”
• “Because I’m getting it from outside, I’m not quite sure what’s going into this
and also like if you go eat out at restaurant and then cook the same thing at home it’s
going to be healthier”
• “Making it at home I think is always healthier than ordering because you are
directly in control of what goes into it, how much and the number of people who
come into contact with it”
It is from this finding that we derived our key insight…our target wants control over
their food. During a time in their lives when very little is in their control, food choice
is the one thing they actually do have control over. They want to know what
ingredients are going into their meals and how they are being prepared because they
are able to choose for themselves what foods they want to put into their bodies.
4. Frozen vs. Take Out
Feelings towards frozen foods and take out were really varied. When we had subjects
sort words into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ piles, many struggles with where to put take
out, stating that it’s not good for you all the time and that it really depends on what
you get. Frozen was placed both columns among participants. Some stated that when
they think of frozen they think of frozen chicken and veggies, so it’s not unhealthy,
while others said that prepackaged foods contained a lot of preservatives and
chemicals. One person preferred frozen over take out because the portion size was
controlled and you know exactly how many calories are in it.
Key Quotes:
o “I think frozen food, the reason why it’s frozen food, it has all this baggage that
comes with it, which is like the sodium and the sugar and all of that”
o “Because something frozen doesn’t necessarily mean it’s unhealthy or healthy”
o “I feel like when I order take out they give really big portions and I eat more of it
than I want to.”
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Our findings in this section were so varied that we do not feel like we could pull any
general ideas or conclusions from our data. This seems to be more of a personal
preference.
5. The Role of Mom
When talking about healthy foods, many interviewees mentioned that they not only
learned about what a healthy meal is from their Mom, but also that what Mom was
cooking was most likely healthy. Participants seemed to put a lot of trust into their
Mom’s cooking.
Key Quotes:
o “My mom would always cook dinner and I would always assume that what she
was making was healthy.”
o “My mom would take me grocery shopping when I was really little and taught
me how to read nutrition labels so I would read I think sodium and sugar were
the biggest ones, sodium especially which is why I don’t do the frozen foods”
o “I feel healthier at home…I think it’s the home cooked meal factor…with the
oversight of my Mom in particular, you know you like to think she knows what’s
good for you.”
We concluded here that even when Millennials leave home to go to college, they still
carry some of the values of their Mom’s cooking with them at school. They learned
from their parents what’s healthy and what’s not, but now it is in their hands to
follow this advice. They are in control, but Mom is always in the back of their mind
guiding their decisions.
6. Health awareness vs. Health practice
We found in our interviews that many people knew what it meant to be healthy and
could assign a concrete definition to the word. However, many interviewees did not
consider themselves to be healthy. They said that it’s really hard in college to be
healthy and that they try but often fall short.
Key Quotes:
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o “If I don’t have vegetables for a day for whatever reason, I feel kind of
bad”(Smiling)
o “Here [in college] it’s a little bit difficult to keep healthy because of the choices
we’re provided with that look good [in the dining hall]. If it looks good, and looks
appetizing I will probably eat it.”
o “It’s [being healthy] important but it doesn’t always like happen, just because of
the college atmosphere.”
o “I try to be healthy, but in college it’s harder.”
o “I’m not a health freak, but I would like to consider myself healthy. I usually go
for leaner options, but I’m not a super salad eater.”
o “I consider myself as not unhealthy?? But then not super healthy either?”
(Smiling)
Body language here was really interesting to observe. When asked if our subjects
consider themselves healthy many of them nervously laughed or rolled their eyes,
indicating that this was a bit of an uncomfortable question. This also told us that
there was definitely a sort of guilt present too. Many people didn’t like to admit that
they weren’t being healthy.
7. Willingness to be filmed
Two of our subjects were not comfortable being filmed. Tones of shame and guilt
could be heard when people said they weren’t comfortable being filmed. One
interviewee agreed to be filmed but later asked in the middle of the interview if the
footage was going to be show to anyone.
Key Quotes:
o “Are you showing your class this?”
o “Are you going to show this to anyone?”
These feelings and attitudes both expressed and implied further confirmed our
prediction that health is a very personal topic that some people really aren’t
comfortable talking about. Our interviewees didn’t want others to know when they
were being unhealthy because it was not something they were proud of.
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CREATIVE STRATEGY
Creative Insight
Preparation is KEY; millennials want to know what’s in their food. We realized that the biggest
concern our interviewees had in their diet was the mystery behind their meals. We learned that
the only way they feel their food is completely healthy is when they know exactly what is going
in to it, and how much. Even if you eat a salad at a restaurant, you can’t see the chef making it
and don’t know exactly what is in it, past the obvious ingredients you can see. The element of
mystery is what scares them; the amount of butter, salt, oils, etc. that they can’t control and
don’t know. Tai Pei benefits from this because they do have an ingredients list on the box, and
with the new, clean and healthy recipe, millennials can see exactly what is inside of their meal.
The Big Idea
Food is the one thing they have control over in their hectic college lives – they have no control
over their schedules, activities, etc, but they do have control over what they eat. Control can
mean time, place, or ingredients when it comes to food.
Target Market
Our target was college students 18-‐22. This was the sample we talked to in our interviews, and
because we’re targeting millennials with a college lifestyle, it makes sense for this to be our
target.
Tagline
With Tai Pei, the fork is in your hands.
Promotions
We believe that this tagline could lead to a variety of different campaigns that could be placed
in many different platforms to promote. One we think is very important is social media. We
know that social media is a great place to target millennials, and when researching the product
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we found it very concerning that they barely have a social media presence.37 By showing an
eye-‐catching or interactive campaign on social platforms, Tai Pei could harness the attention of
the impressionable audience they’re hoping to win.
We thought of a possible TV spot execution for our tagline, “With Tai Pei, the fork is in
your hands.” It would have a hand on the left side of the screen with words coming at it like,
“Schedule, Group Project, and Call Mom.” The hand would consistently flick the words away,
but then a fork would come at it, and it would grab the fork. Then, it would put the fork in a
plate of Tai Pei, and the slogan will pop up on the screen. See below:
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INFORMATION SOURCES
1 NSAC Student Brief 2017 Tai Pei Brand, pg 3 2 NSAC Student Brief 2017 Tai Pei Brand, pg 4 3NSAC Student Brief 2017 Tai Pei Brand, pg 8 4NSAC Student Brief 2017 Tai Pei Brand, pg 10 5NSAC Student Brief 2017 Tai Pei Brand, pg 11 6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1RUci583k, description box 7https://www.facebook.com/TaiPeiAsianFood/, May 3rd post 8http://taipeifood.com/ProductDetail.aspx?id=9, nutrition facts tab 9http://www.taipeifood.com/WhereToBuy.aspx?zip=07728&dd=7007783050, left of page 10NSAC Background Information, pg 14 “Competitive Social Overview” 11https://www.facebook.com/TaiPeiAsianFood/, September 7th post, August 10th post 12https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1RUci583k 13http://www.taipeifood.com/About.aspx, slide 3 14NSAC Background Information, pg 6 “Facts & Findings Snapshot” 15http://academic.mintel.com/display/754625/?highlight, paragraph 1 16http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/digitally-‐disrupting-‐the-‐habitual-‐
shopping-‐routine.html, paragraph 2 17https://www.facebook.com/TaiPeiAsianFood/photos/a.489189507760428.121424.48423934
8255444/1146392752040097/?type=3&theater, February 13th post 18NSAC Background Information, pg 16 "Macro Food & Lifestyle Trends” 19http://academic.mintel.com/display/730159/?highlight, “Millennials’ top online activities
task-‐oriented section” 20NSAC Background Information, pg 25 “Millennial Eating Trends” 21https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1RUci583k 22NSAC Background Information, pg 33 “Millennial Shopping Experience” 23NSAC Background Information, pg 20 “Research Summary Highlight” 24NSAC Background Information, pg 24 “Millennial Food Trends”
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25NSAC Background Information, pg 9 “Single Serve Entrees ALL Brand Ranking – Total US
MULO” 26http://academic.mintel.com/display/754625/?highligh, paragraph 2 27http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/whats-‐in-‐our-‐food-‐and-‐on-‐our-‐
minds.html , third bullet point 28NSAC Background Information, pg 34 “Millennial Shopping Experience” 29NSAC Background Information, pg 10 “Asian Single Serve Entrees Brand Ranking – Total US
MULO” 30https://www.leancuisine.com/products/search 31NSAC Background Information, pg 11 “Competitive Activity & Spend” 32https://www.facebook.com/stouffers/?fref=ts , September 19th post, September 6th post 33http://coolerinsights.com/2014/11/brand-‐media-‐strategy/ , Consumer Pathway Chart 34http://www.okspecialtyfruits.com/millennials-‐desire-‐healthy-‐convenient-‐foodand-‐arctic-‐
apples-‐deliver/, “Millennials Desire Healthy, Convenient Food, and Arctic Apples Deliver!” 35https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYKHCAIf5nCoXJV8b87Hlpw, “Tai Pei Youtube” 36https://www.youtube.com/user/leancuisine, “Lean Cuisine Youtube” 37NSAC Background Information, pg 17 “Macro Food and Lifestyle Trends” 38https://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/eu/nielseninsights/pdfs/Nielsen%20Gl
obal%20Health%20and%20Wellness%20Report%20-‐%20January%202015.pdf, “WE ARE WHAT
WE EAT: Healthy Eating Trends Around the World” 39NSAC Background Information, pg 4 “Facts and Findings Snapshot” 40http://www.refrigeratedfrozenfood.com/articles/87771-‐top-‐150-‐frozen-‐foods-‐processors-‐
report-‐frozen-‐food-‐asiles-‐heat-‐up-‐the-‐bottom-‐line, “Top 150 Frozen Foods Processors: Frozen
Food Aisles Heat Up the Bottom Line” 41http://www.refrigeratedfrozenfood.com/articles/88837-‐frozen-‐and-‐prepared-‐foods-‐trends-‐
in-‐2015, “Frozen and Prepared Foods Trends in 2015” 42http://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=japr, “The Impact of
Consumer Product Package Quality on Consumption Satisfaction, Brand Perceptions, Consumer
Investment and Behavior”
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43http://www.foodmanufacturing.com/news/2013/09/consumer-‐trends-‐growing-‐demand-‐
boosts-‐frozen-‐food-‐market, “Consumer Trends: Growing Demand Boosts Frozen Food Market” 44http://www.nacsonline.com/Media/Daily/Pages/ND0630144.aspx#.V-‐O1ZTK-‐I6h, “Frozen
Foods Suffering From Consumer Misperceptions”
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MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS
Paper & Pen ‘Post-Screening’:
1. Age (fill in) 2. Gender: M, F, Other, Prefer not to say 3. College student? Y/N 4. Please rank the following in order of preference with 1 being most favorite and 5 being
the least. ___ Take Out/ Delivery (pizza, Chinese, sushi, etc.) ___ Home cooked meal (more than three ingredients/steps in cooking it) ___ Frozen dinner (Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s, Frozen pizza, etc.) ___ Prepared foods (easy mac, prepared meals at grocery stores, microwaved mashed potatoes, etc.) ___ Fast food (McDonalds, Chipotle, Subway, etc.)
5. Which are you most likely to eat on a daily basis? Please rank with 1 being the most likely and 5 being the least. ___ Take Out/ Delivery (pizza, Chinese, sushi, etc.) ___ Home cooked meal (more than three ingredients/steps in cooking it) ___ Frozen dinner (Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s, Frozen pizza, etc.) ___ Prepared foods (easy mac, prepared meals at grocery stores, microwaved mashed potatoes, etc.) ___ Fast food (McDonalds, Chipotle, Subway, etc.)
INTERVIEW GUIDE
1. What was the last meal you ate?
2. What are some of your favorite snack foods?
3. What are some of your favorite prepared foods (prepared can be frozen, made in store
etc. Anything that you are not preparing yourself)?
4. What are some important factors when choosing food?
5. What does it mean to you to be “healthy”?
6. How important is it for you to engage in these practices? (Respond to answers)
7. Do you consider yourself to be healthy? Why or why not? (make sure this is addressed
somewhere in response above)
8. What’s the biggest challenge for you when it comes to health?
9. How do you learn about current health trends and issues?
10. How did you learn how to discern a healthy meal from an unhealthy meal?
11. When you’re trying to be healthy, what kinds of foods do you eat?
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12. Where do you go when you want a healthy meal?
13. Put these words into categories: negative and positive. If you don’t know where to put it
you can place it in the middle. (TAKE NOTE OF WHERE FROZEN IS, ask why it is
where it is)
Words: Papers with words: Clean, organic, farm to table, sugar free, low calorie, real
ingredients, natural, no preservatives, frozen, home cooked, take out, leftovers, prepared
foods, fast food, high calorie, high sugar, high fat, high sodium, MSG
14. If you were to make a healthy meal right now, what ingredients would you
include? Where would you get these from?
15. What’s your favorite healthy meal?
16. What’s your favorite meal in general?
17. How do those differ?
18. Is this food healthy? Why? (Show one picture at a time) (Will allow us to assess if
health is associated with place/location of food)
