Jona Mancuso, Carma Laboratories, VP of Marketing - Persuadable Research Corporation

“Persuadable Research has been a critical partner to the Carmex brand for the last three years.  Our team has leveraged their insights not only across multiple marketing channels but also across multiple functions within the organization. Insights have helped us ideate and build out our R&D pipeline, modify media planning based on brand tracking results and support our sales strategies at retail.

“The team at Persuadable Research truly operates as an extension of our internal brand team. I always trust that they will work as hard as we do to mine for answers to the toughest business questions. They’re a great partner to us, responsive and thoughtful, and they would be a great asset to any marketer seeking insights to a make a difference in brand performance.”

The Background

When Jona Mancuso took the reins of the Carmex brand back in 2014, she was charged with breathing new life into the trusted, over 80-year-old brand.  There were two things she wanted to do, right off the bat:  first, she needed an AAU to get the “lay of the land” within the lip balm category. Second, she wanted to start tracking the brand in an effort to understand media campaign impact as she explored new approaches to promoting the brand.

The AAU helped the Carmex team understand brand position in the category. Additionally, it helped the team understand what attributes were controlled by which competitors and identify “white space” where a new product bearing the Carmex name could be credible and successful.

AAU insights helped spur ideation sessions with the R&D team, ultimately leading to development of the Carmex Comfort Care lip balm concept. Persuadable Research completed a range of consumer research for Carmex Comfort Care, including testing positioning concepts, prototypes, flavors, packaging, and an In-home Usage Test with diaries to see how the product experience developed over time.

In September of 2016, Carmex Comfort Care lip balm hit store shelves nationally and helped generate new momentum and excitement for the Carmex brand.  In February of 2017, Carmex Comfort Care was awarded “2017 Product of the Year” in the lip care category.

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