Client Name

National Foods Limited

Faculty Advisor

Mr. Atif Murtaza

SBS Thought Leadership Areas

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

SBS Thought Leadership Area Justification

Drizz'l as a brand represents National Foods' push into a newer sauce category targeting Gen Z consumers a segment that demands novelty and relevance in equal measure. Our project sits within this space by going beyond surface-level activation metrics and asking a harder question: why does trial not convert to loyalty? In doing so we are not just diagnosing a retention gap but developing a framework that National Foods can apply to future launches as an innovation in activation strategy itself. The methodology we have built around consumer-level drivers and quantifiable retention indicators offers a replicable model for brands navigating the challenge of building loyalty in an attention-scarce market. This is fundamentally an entrepreneurial problem: how do you take early traction and turn it into sustained growth?

Aligned SDGs

GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Aligned SDGs Justification

Our project is linked with SDG 12 Sustainable consumption and production patterns. Responsible business practices are a core part of National Foods' ethos, evidenced by its membership of SEDEX and Supplier Ethical Data Exchange, which are both certificates that demonstrate ethical sourcing and transparency of supply chains. Drizz'l is part of this greater pledge to be a local sauce that speaks to the everyday consumer of the Gen Z. Why Trial does not mean Repeat Purchase is addressed in our research, it is not an impulse purchase question but rather a question of building lasting consumption behaviour. We help make relationships between consumers and products more deliberate by uncovering the barriers that hinder retention, and create activation approaches that establish true brand loyalty. This helps to achieve the larger objective of responsible Consumption, which is to reduce the wasteful trial-and-abandon approach and promotes ongoing purposeful purchases. The results further inform the adoption of more efficient resource allocation for National Foods in relation to responsible production at the organization level, aligned with their spend on activation.

Section 2 comprehensively examines the secondary research on global and Pakistan FMCG market, sauces market, and Gen Z consumer behavior. Section 2 provides an overview of secondary sources pertaining to the global FMCG market, the sauces market and consumer behavior of Gen Z. Research Philosophy and Methodology are in Section 3. This section outlines the findings from the primary research conducted at the 4 activation locations, through the shopper intercepts, the blind taste test, the retail audit and the social media audit. Section 5 makes recommendations for retail and digital and activation frameworks.

NDA

No

Abstract

Drizz'l is a premium sauce brand launched in December 2024 that was experiencing high trial at on-ground activations, but had not seen repeat purchases. A hybrid research design approach of secondary market analysis, primary qualitative fieldwork and a quantitative blind taste test is used in the study to diagnose the structural causes of the activation to retention gap. Primary data was gathered at three activation locations on ground (IBA Career Fair, Karachi Eat, The Commons) and 30 shopper intercept interviews were conducted at Springs Supermarket, a retail audit was conducted across five zones in Karachi and a structured blind comparative taste test was conducted at IBA with 218 participants. The blind test revealed 65.6 % preference for Drizz'l compared to Dipitt, 36.2 % correct brand recognition after tasting and no spontaneous brand recognition at point of purchase. Overall purchase intent (Yes and Maybe) at activation sites was 77.5% and unconditional purchase intent was about 25-30% reflecting a significant gap between trial desire and retail conversion. Three structural failures drive the gap: Drizz'l is primarily in modern trade, and is not in key general trade locations; packaging and brand recall are under-performed in comparison to competitor Dipitt, despite the product quality advantage; activation mechanics do not create a post-trial ecosystem to drive a warm consumer to a shelf. To fill this gap, the study recommends an evidence-based activation model called TRACE Framework (Trial Design, Recall Engineering, Advocacy Capture, Catchment Conversion and Ecosystem Follow-Through). The project supports SDG 12 related to Responsible Consumption and Production, encouraging more intentional consumer-brand relationships, and more efficient activation spend.

Document Type

Restricted Access

Document Name for Citation

Experiential Learning Project

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