“A multimillion-dollar impact”: ofi turns consumer insights into confident decisions with Pogo.

When you're advising retailers on multimillion-dollar private-label decisions, you need to know the data behind those decisions will hold up. Can you trust what consumers are telling you? And can you back it up with something more convincing than a chart?

ofi's private label marketing team, led by Shannon Clayton, answers exactly those questions for its retail customers, acting as a consultancy that helps retailers grow their private label businesses.

Before Pogo, the team sourced its consumer insights through a do-it-yourself survey platform, built on an opt-in consumer panel. It worked, but Shannon knew its foundation was shaky.

"You're only as good as the data provided by the opt-in consumer," she says. "People can tell you whatever they want to opt into that survey."

Switching to Pogo improved both the credibility of Shannon's team's data, and the speed at which they got it. Pogo's receipt-verified consumer panels, intuitive survey builder, and AI-moderated video interviews let the team launch a study in minutes.

When the data has to hold up.

For a team whose job is to hand retailers a recommendation and stand behind it, the credibility of the underlying data is vital.

"Through Pogo's receipt verification and the qualifying verification of the purchases, we felt so much more confident in the data, and confident sharing it with our customers," Shannon says. "They became able to rely on what we were providing."

John Carney, ofi’s sales director for one of the company's largest retail customers, saw the same effect from the retail side.

"There's a difference between what people say they do and what they do," he says. "Having that validated consumer is critically important. You can take that back to your customer and tell them: this is the voice of your customer."

“Way more powerful than words on paper.”

"Being able to have video output directly from consumers' mouths is so powerful. It's way more persuasive than just having words on a piece of paper or a chart," Shannon says.

The difference first showed up in ofi’s first Pogo study on disposable pepper grinders. The ofi team wanted to know whether an adjustability feature was worth a premium. Pogo's AI-moderated video interviews revealed two distinct groups of shoppers: one with no idea of the feature and no wish to pay for it, and one that considered it a must-have.

"Being able to understand that there are two very specific consumer groups for this product allowed us to say: maybe we need two different product lines for this category," says Shannon.

From study to green light in one meeting.

At the briefing for the pepper grinder study, Shannon presented her team's video insights to stakeholders. Unusually, the room decided on the spot to launch two product lines.

"Usually, we think about things; we have meeting after meeting after meeting... but this was so clear," Shannon says. "Ultimately, it's going to lead to a multimillion-dollar business impact for us."

John saw the same speed reshape an assortment decision with one of ofi’s largest retail customers, when a Pogo study reversed the team's thinking on an organic spice launch.

"We delivered the study to the customer within a single day, and it put us on a completely different trajectory within seconds," he says. "You can field a study one day and have a response in 24 to 48 hours. That's remarkable."

Now, what started as a research tool for Shannon's insights team has become something retailers request directly.

"We have certain customers now who know Pogo by name,” she says. “They will say, 'let's go run a Pogo.’ Meanwhile, members of our sales team are coming to us asking for surveys to be run. They see the value of ‘a Pogo’ and how it can help them generate sales."

John describes the same shift from the customer-facing side: "When the customer hears the feedback from their consumers, the true consumer voice completely changes the paradigm," he says. "Pogo has helped position ofi to be our retail customers’ first call."

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