The Context

Worthington Enterprises “manufactures and markets category-leading brands found on the shelves of mass retailers, home improvement and specialty stores around the globe.” Reflecting the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder, Worthington Enterprises places a high value on understanding and serving its customers.

The Critical Questions

Managers of revered brands such as Coleman, Balloon Time, and Garden Weasel asked Illuminology for help acquiring a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of their customers. What opportunities might there be to better serve customers as they do a variety of tasks and jobs? Could those customers be segmented into meaningful, actionable, accurate segments?

Our Solution

Over the course of multiple projects for different brands, Illuminology worked collaboratively with Worthington Enterprises’ team members to design and deploy customized research that was tailored to the needs of the engagement. For example, contextual inquiries with customers (conducted both in-person and virtually) allowed our researchers to observe and explore how products were used in their natural environment(s), and how the customer experiences with those products could be optimized. And high-quality, nationally representative customer surveys allowed our researchers to use advanced statistical techniques that assigned customers to different segments.

Illumination

The various quantitative research engagements produced valid and reliable estimates of customer preferences and behaviors, in addition to actionable customer segmentation models. And the qualitative research engagements helped provide the Coleman, Balloon Time, and Garden Weasel brand managers with useful insights into how, why, where, and when their customers interacted with the products.

Resolution

The information and insights that Illuminology delivered to Worthington Enterprises helped it to estimate the total addressable market for different categories, to guide a variety of new product development efforts, and to inspire its product and channel marketing.