Ruby Cha Cha is a market research agency in Australia offering FMCG market research services. Our knack for human insight and understanding allows us to get underneath the surface of the FMCG consumer to understand how they tick. We use a mix of innovative technology and traditional research methods from qualitative to quantitative research, strategy and consulting.
Our insights and consultancy offer take advantage of our collective business experience in brand marketing and customer value propositions to provide assistance to your team when facing the challenges of modern businesses and marketing.
We also offer a full range of innovation services backed by a strong market research and planning consultancy. When it comes to Innovation Services, we are 'front end specialists' that can help you define the innovation task and work with you to create new ideas that are consumer tested and business ready.
The growth of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands is slowing, and they are now facing difficult challenges when it comes to where to play and how to win. The best way to understand how to win in any market is through solid market research.
In a category defined by tight margins and constant change, Ruby Cha Cha helps FMCG brands move with purpose. We dig beyond data to uncover what truly drives consumer choice: the emotions and shifting contexts that shape buying decisions.
Our experts translate these insights into clear actions that sharpen positioning, inspire innovation and strengthen loyalty. From brand stretch to new product launches, we help you see what's next and act with confidence. With Ruby Cha Cha, insight becomes the fuel that powers growth in a fast-moving world.
Currently, there is a lot of talk about agile, digital and CX, UX, etc. that can make everything about market research seem a bit hard or too difficult to get underway. In reality, it's never been easier to get good research underway and there are now a myriad of options in market research to suit all budgets — whether you are an established brand in a big corporation or a new brand or business entering the marketplace.
Ruby Cha Cha believes that effective FMCG market research goes beyond collecting data. It should connect the dots between customer behaviour, brand performance and market opportunity. Insight-driven strategies reveal what motivates purchase decisions, where growth potential lies and how to refine your offering for maximum impact in competitive environments.
FMCG market research should first and foremost help you understand what needs your customer has.
The following examples are some of the typical types of FMCG research available to help you with a range of different business issues.
This can help to ensure all of your brand's communications are built upon solid, relevant and differentiating foundations. Effective research and planning can help you identify relevant rational and emotional benefits; use the right consumer language and tone; uncover breakthrough insights and nail consumer hot buttons so you can tweak your brand's messaging strategy to improve your business results.
This aims to discover which ads or advertising ideas will be most effective for your existing or potential customers. We believe the best way to research an ad is through detailed research before a campaign to give it the best chance of success in the market.
The goal is to understand your customers and their motivations so you can demonstrate why your product meets their needs. Research can then further help with telling you how successful the campaign was, the impact it has on sales and ROI. Research can also help you optimise your campaigns to continually improve results and remain relevant to your customers.
Imagine launching a new snack range and discovering mid-campaign that your playful tone lands better with parents than teens. Too late to pivot, right? Ruby Cha Cha's advertising and communication research can prevent that. We combine behavioural testing with real-world validation, so FMCG leaders like you can optimise creative, channel mix and spend before you commit serious budget.
This can be qualitative or quantitative in nature, but retail market research is a must for understanding the buyer needs over the consumer needs and the decision-making processes that underpin purchases in retail, online or on the go. This is generally how we execute this:
This is useful for understanding issues from the trade's perspective. Face-to-face interviews or assistance with writing trade stories from your data can help you fight for retailer space and make a claim on your needs.
In FMCG, shelf space and visibility are hard-won. Ruby Cha Cha's trade and stakeholder engagement research helps uncover retailer motivations, category pressures and partnership barriers that often go unseen. By translating these insights into persuasive trade stories, we empower brands to negotiate stronger listings, build advocacy and strengthen long-term channel relationships.
As an FMCG brand, you know how it is to drown in fragmented data and chase trends without clarity on what truly drives sales. Deep down, you know that conducting research on your audience and their needs is the best method for ensuring success. Understanding who you're marketing to will help design a product, service or campaign that is likely to connect with those people and their needs. Down the line, measuring and refining your marketing is the fine-tuning that will make your efforts really shine.
Ruby Cha Cha turns your confusion into direction. We translate complex shopper insights into focused strategies that sharpen shelf performance, streamline decision-making and give you the confidence to act faster, smarter and with purpose.
If you're keen on making data-backed decisions that grow your brand, Ruby Cha Cha delivers strategic FMCG market research tailored to your business objectives. From innovation and shopper journeys to brand health and campaign testing, we'll help you uncover what makes your customers tick and how to convert that insight into action. Whether you need qualitative research to explore ideas or quantitative research for FMCG to validate them, our team of FMCG experts will support you every step of the way.
Get in touch to talk through your brief, explore your options and put insight at the heart of your business strategy.
Ruby Cha Cha has a seasoned history of working with blue chip FMCG companies in every category you can imagine from food through to personal care, laundry, health as well as fast-food and liquor. We have worked with retailers and buyers and helped our clients with trade stories. We understand brands, the categories they operate in and consumers and shoppers intimately.
With nearly 15 years in the business and experience that spans over 30 years of evidence-based research, we can help you segment your market, create cut through messaging, track your success and help your brand grow in and across markets. Our market research can help you build your innovation pipeline, test your concepts, size your market and position your brand to win.
We have a range of qualitative, quantitative and consulting services. The list includes but is not limited by the following:
The list goes on. Many of our studies have tried and true processes that we tweak and tailor to the client's needs.
Market research is critical for strategic brand development and understanding your market. We outline 5 myths of marketing and why market research is important.
Myth 1 — You don't need a point of difference.
Not uniquely claiming what sets your brand apart from the competition is a losing choice. Confused or soft messaging allows your brand to get lost or for competition to encroach on your territory. Differentiation is the crucial difference between building a sustainable business and failure. Brand positioning studies and retail market research can help you with this.
Myth 2 — You should target everyone to have the best chance of success.
You cannot be everything to everyone! Targeting everyone "just in case" (FOMO) is a waste of effort and money. Narrow your target audience by understanding who the core group of buyers that your brand is the best fit for. This is where a customer segmentation study or a U&A study can help clarify who your customer is and how best to connect.
Myth 3 — You think you already know who your customer is and what they want.
It's not what YOU think and say about your brand that matters; it's what YOUR CUSTOMER thinks and says — their feelings and emotions about your brand. Consumer market research can provide the insights for better targeting or marketing.
Also, just because customers share the same age, gender, ethnicity, income or place of residence does NOT mean they will use the same kind of technology, drive the same car, eat the same food or use the same kinds of health care products! A U&A study can help, as can exploratory focus groups or online communities to get deeper insight.
Myth 4 — You can't afford research to find out who your customers are.
Don't try and guess who your customers are and how they think and behave. The single best investment you can make in terms of time and money is research. Try to set aside 5–10% of your marketing budget, but if you can't afford customised research, there are other options: observing your customers in action, or Google… there's lots of information out there. You should also conduct a brand health audit and track your brand awareness and any campaigns that you run.
Myth 5 — Customers love to spend all their time thinking about your brand.
Avoid overcomplicating your brand offer/point of difference. The core of your positioning should be quickly and easily understood by your target audience. Don't make the customer think too hard by being obscurely clever. Think about Aldi. They just say Good, Different, and that's enough! That's because the hard positioning work has been done in the background and Aldi knows their customer intimately.
The trends affecting FMCG companies over the past few years are clear.
FMCG stands for Fast-moving consumer goods, also known as CPG or Consumer Packaged Goods. These are products that sell quickly, tend to have a short shelf life and are available at a relatively low cost. FMCG products are driven by high consumer demand (e.g., toilet paper, sweets, commodities like rice, flour or sugar) or because they are perishable (e.g., meat, dairy products and baked goods).
The industry itself is typically driven by manufacturers, who sell the goods to wholesalers, and/or retailers, who in turn sell them to the consumers. The industry has been disrupted in recent years with the digital age. Some manufacturers sell directly to consumers (e.g., online), and new channels are constantly emerging through social media and localised offers. Brand development research is a core part of the FMCG industry to help businesses differentiate and target their brands and offers to consumers.
FMCG research with consumers can help unpack needs, drivers and barriers to products, messaging and channels.
The global food and beverages market in 2020 is expected to grow from $5943.8 billion in 2019 to $6111.1 billion in 2020 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.9%.
The Australian food industry is hard to break down and is an intricate maze of ingredient and packaging suppliers that have different supply chain management solutions, and this makes answering this question difficult. For example:
We suggest reviewing publications by IBISWORLD and Neilson for more accurate market assurances.
You should always conduct FMCG market research to understand the key market drivers before going to market. There are numerous books and resources on this subject, but here are a couple of guidelines:
Qualitative research for FMCG helps uncover the 'why' behind consumer behaviour through methods like focus groups, interviews or ethnography. Quantitative research provides statistically significant data to measure preferences, track brand health or test product concepts at scale.
Yes. Combining both gives you a full picture. Qualitative helps you understand the story behind behaviour: the context, emotions and motivations in order to develop hypotheses, while quantitative confirms them with real numbers and tests how widespread those numbers are. Together, they give you confidence to make decisions that are both human-centred and commercially sound.
Retail market research focuses on the shopper journey and in-store experience, while consumer market research explores behaviours, needs and attitudes across the broader path to purchase.
Think of it this way: consumer research might tell you that shoppers value "healthy convenience", but retail research reveals that your product gets overlooked because it's placed near indulgent snacks. Both perspectives matter. One explains why people buy; the other shows how and where those decisions actually happen.
Get in touch with our team of market research and FMCG experts here at Ruby Cha Cha. We are happy to answer your questions and help you get the right brief and project design for your business. Drop us a line at info@rubychacha.com.au or get in touch.
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