Overview
Happy Elephant is a high-end soap and cleaner company formulated to be environmentally friendly, we are partnered with the Borneo Conservation Trust. Three main products were slated to launch in the US: dish soap, laundry detergent, and fabric softener. The goal was to analyze the US market landscape before launching the brand in the US and to identify the markets that would resonate most with our company’s offerings.
Market Insights
These three markets are extremely steady with few fluctuations over the last ten years (even COVID had minimal impact).
Sensory appeal is huge in this space (scent, feel, and appearance of the product); alternatively, function is often used as the branding focus of a product.
The softener market is by far the least competitive despite its smaller size, the detergent space has a behemoth in each corner of the market, and the dish soap space is the most cramped space with Dawn capturing 60% of $ sales by itself.
Unlike flavors in the food and bev industry (our sister company Lakanto plays in that space), unique scents outperform classics.
A fairly new product, detergent sheets, are growing at a crazy rate. Within 5 years of becoming widely available, it has already taken over 25% of online detergent sales, and general knowledge of the product is still relatively low.
Eco-Consumer Insights
Females with families hold most of the purchasing power in this industry, doubly so when narrowing our focus down to eco-friendly & high-income consumers.
Eco-friendly purchasing habits are often driven first by a desire for family-safe products, with the environmental impact coming in second.
Consumers prefer purchasing these products in-store. This is mostly due to online pricing concerns and because they like to smell before they buy. Those who purchase online are motivated mainly by convenience.
Potential eco-friendly consumers have three main concerns on their minds stopping them from going green: price difference, lower product effectiveness, and the veracity of eco-claims.
When targeting the currently eco-conscious, social influence and subtle guilt have been the most effective strategies. Read this article for a fascinating case study on the topic.
Resulting Strategies
Two preliminary strategic decisions we made based on this research are detailed here:
Detergent sheets were top on our list. Because of our brand’s online focus and eco-centric messaging, this was a perfect fit for us. We had to push pretty hard to convince our Japanese branch we needed to begin developing this product before we had even launched, but we are now close to the new product launch.
Our scents were inspired by our unique company origin. Knowing that unique scent names attract customer attention before the scent reels them in, we used our Borneo connection to inspire our scent development. Scents including Lush Rain, Greenery & Fig, Coral Coast, Dragon Fruit Drop, and Exotic Citrus were developed and compared as options for our primary product scent.
