Case Study

Client:

Anonymous

Sector:

E-Commerce, Retail

Project Type:

User Research

Consulting

Services:

Qualitative Research

Collaborators:

N/A

The Challenge

The client is a leading skincare brand known for their dermatologist-backed, clinically proven skincare products. With the brand growing towards market maturity, they recognized a need to evolve their promotional strategies towards deepening engagement with its existing loyal base while attracting a new generation of skincare customers.

To inform future campaigns and promotional strategies in their direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel, they brought in qualitative research to gain a better understanding of the motivations, expectations, and concerns that shape customer behavior and purchasing habits across its different segments.

Our Response

The client partnered with Made Manifest to engage their customers directly in qualitative research, conducting in-depth 1:1 interviews with both repeat customers and emerging consumer segments. The team sought to uncover underlying skincare motivations and the emotional drivers behind purchasing decisions.

These insights helped inform the exploration of future strategies. The team at Made Manifest facilitated brainstorming sessions with the client to identify opportunities for deeper emotional engagement with consumers beyond promotions and pricing discounts.

Client:

Anonymous

Sector:

E-Commerce, Retail

Project Type:

User Research

Consulting

Services:

Qualitative Research

Collaborators:

N/A

Client:

Anonymous

Client Sector:

E-Commerce, Retail

Project Type:

User Research

Consulting

Services:

Qualitative Research

Collaborators:

N/A

The Challenge

Our Response

The Opportunity

The client is a leading dermatologist-backed skincare brand known for their clinically proven formulations. For years, they have built a strong reputation and loyal customer base around their core offerings, with recent performance indicating a brand in a growth to maturing phase. Despite their loyal base and strong product reputation, thet client’s frequent promotional cadence (with 4-5 promotional campaigns running monthly) has created a pattern of discount dependency. Customers have grown accustomed to expecting promotions, creating risks in the client’s growth model: this could undermine long-term brand reputation, lower conversion on non-promo days, and encourage negative shopping behaviours such as stockpiling.

The client recognized the need to evolve its promotional strategy, and as the brand looked to reduce promo frequency without losing momentum on growth, they identified an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying motivations and needs of their customers.

Our Approach

To address this knowledge gap, the client partnered with Made Manifest to conduct a qualitative research study focusing on two key customer segments, repeat buyers who represent their existing loyal base, and new buyers with recent purchases who represent an emergent prospective market.

Through in-depth interviews with these customers, the research team explored personal skincare routines, emotional motivators, expectations, and purchase behaviours. Participants shared photos of their bathroom counters and vanity spaces, allowing for deeper contextual inquiry around product usage, brand loyalty, and main influences to purchase.

Taking over 600 minutes of rich interview data, Made Manifest coded, synthesized, and paired this with a competitive review of emerging trends and promotional strategies across the skincare industry. The team supplemented qualitative findings with research from competitor campaigns, reward programs, and product offerings, gaining valuable insights around what truly impacts buyer motivations.

Project Outcomes

All research efforts and key findings were extensively documented in a research report, which was shared back with the client’s broader cross-functional team. The research validated several internal hypotheses about customer expectations while informing longer term strategic considerations around loyalty, retention, and brand penetration, helping stakeholders formalize key decisions on future promotional campaigns.

Insights were also paired with tactical recommendations based on discussions and brainstorm sessions that Made Manifest facilitated with internal stakeholders, surfacing hypotheses that could be prioritized and turned into planned experiments aimed at increasing non-promo conversion. In addition, findings offered new approaches to customer segmentation that were based on emotional drivers, skincare concerns, and shopping behaviours, enabling the the client team to shift their blanket-approach promotions towards more targeted and personalized campaigns. With an understanding of what actually drives their customers to purchase when discounts aren’t at play, research findings informed new strategies for expanding the client’s core offerings and encouraging further product exploration for deeper brand penetration.

customers across two segments

600

minutes of rich qualitative data

major skincare brands analyzed competitively

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How can we reduce reliance on promos and shift customer behaviour toward deeper, lasting engagement?

The Challenge

Our Response

The Challenge

Our Response

The Opportunity

Our Approach

Project Outcomes

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