Gauging market opportunity and validating business strategy with Mad Mex
The challenge
As popular fast-casual chain Mad Mex looks to further expand their business and boost both awareness and revenue, they needed insights in two spaces: determining brand perception and gauging the opportunity for a new snacking initiative.
The Yabble factor
Thanks to the power, speed, and accuracy of Yabble, Mad Mex was able to gain a validated understanding of where they sat within the market and where they were falling short. The platform’s results allowed them to understand where they needed to position themselves in the restaurant space — ultimately giving them the confidence they needed to launch their snacking range.
“Yabble means better data, better marketing, and better results.”
Since its founding in 2007, Baja-Mexican fast-casual chain Mad Mex has grown to more than 70 restaurants across both Australia and New Zealand.
As they look to further expand the business and boost both awareness and revenue, they turned to Yabble for critical market insights in two spaces: determining brand perception and gauging the opportunity for a new snacking initiative.
Understanding brand positioning to make better, faster, smarter business decisions
“We launched a new brand campaign a few years ago, and it was time to really understand the impact this new positioning has had on the customer’s perception of Mad Mex,” says Nick Cook, General Manager of Marketing at Mad Mex. “In short, we wanted to get a better sense of how the market views the brand and of how we can better meet customers’ needs.”
Working collaboratively with the Mad Mex team, we used the Yabble platform to collect survey results from consumers active in the fast-casual market. Targeted to relevant audiences and locations, the survey was designed to test and explore Mad Mex brand awareness and perception — including how frequently people visit or consider visiting a Mad Mex restaurant.
“It was hugely beneficial to gain a validated understanding of where we’re currently sitting and where we’re falling short,” Nick notes. “The Yabble platform delivered really robust data and even some surprising results. Certain areas we thought were strengths turned out to be weaker against competitors, for instance, and conversely we indexed quite strongly on things we didn’t expect.”
Is the market ripe for snacking? Using data to drive new product development
With a better grasp on how the Mad Mex audience views the brand, the business decided to dive deeper into one particular area: the market potential for a new snacking offering.
As an add-on to the overall brand tracker, we conducted a quick exploration of the market to measure current behavior, gauge the general interest in a Mad Mex offer, and pinpoint any key barriers the business would need to overcome to make the initiative a success. The snacking component of the study tested early concept ideas and price points in a five-to-seven-minute questionnaire targeted at consumers 14 to 45 years of age in key regions for the Mad Mex business.
“The second part of our insights gave us the confidence we need to launch our snacking range,” Nick says. “We were able to understand where we’ll need to position ourselves in the market and whether we should look to loyalists or new segments for the real opportunity.”
“The Yabble platform turns what’s usually quite a cumbersome, costly, time-intensive process into something quick, easy, and cost-effective — meaning we can actually perform market research more regularly and get more from our data.”
The power of the Yabble platform — and the advantage of real-time results
One of the benefits of the Yabble platform and technology is the ability to view responses in real-time, enabling you to steadily track your results and to build a detailed understanding of your audience more quickly.
“Yabble’s speed was really impressive,” Nick says. “The platform’s real-time results feature isn’t something I’ve experienced before doing market research, and it was incredibly useful in allowing us to understand where the data was heading throughout the project.”
The platform’s intuitive, user-friendly nature appealed to the Mad Mex team as well and will continue to provide value in the future, enabling the popular fast-food chain to run their own surveys and AI analysis as part of their ongoing market research program.
“Because Yabble’s easy to use, we can see some really good future opportunities to perform brand dips ourselves using the platform,” Nick notes.
“Yabble’s speed was really impressive. The platform’s real-time results feature isn’t something I’ve experienced before doing market research, and it was incredibly useful in allowing us to understand where the data was heading throughout the project.”
What's next for Mad Mex?
“Some of the results from phase one were quite surprising for our leadership team, leading to opportunities for richer exploration,” Nick says. “The next phase will really feed into our brand strategy, including our loyalty program. We’re interested in understanding what our Los Locos members want from us and what’s currently missing in our offering.”
Our work with Mad Mex illustrates the power and efficacy of the Yabble platform — particularly for the retail sector, where keeping a finger on the pulse of constantly evolving consumer behavior is critical for growth. With the unique combination of proprietary algorithms and cutting-edge technology that powers our products, market research is quicker, easier, and more cost-effective than ever before, meaning you can learn from your data and revitalize your brand and customer experiences without worrying about huge cost or time expenditures.
As Mad Mex says: “The Yabble platform turns what’s usually quite a cumbersome, costly, time-intensive process into something quick, easy, and cost-effective — meaning we can actually perform market research more regularly and get more from our data.”
