Towards empowering consumers to co-design FMCGs at scale by identifying hidden consensus

Despite substantial investment, product personalisation at the individual level faces great challenges to economic viability, especially for low-cost products such as many FMCGs.  Data-driven product design could offer rapid adjustment to consumer trends in areas where consensus can be identified.

This project builds on cutting-edge inter-disciplinary research1, 2 to establish highly efficient methods for active capture of uncertainty and leeway in consumer preferences—to identify areas of hidden consensus and inform decisions about product design and market segmentation, while giving consumers’ back active choice in the product design process. Enabling products tailored to those with compatible, rather than identical preferences, could provide a basis for accessible, scalable, and commercially viable data driven FMCG customisation.

Project team: Christian Wagner, Zack Ellerby, Elena Nichele, Jiahong Chen, Andrew Smith & The Lab for Uncertainty in Data and decision Making (LUCID), N/LAB & Horizon CDT.

Partners: Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever

Introduction blog, mid blog, final blog.

Start date: 1st April 2021 – 31 March 2022

This project sits within Horizon’s Agile programme

OUTPUTS

Presentation at the Association of Business Communication (ABC), October 2021