How continuous market tracking helped a leading manufacturer navigate shifting channels and consumer behaviour
Reframing Market Understanding in a Fragmenting Paint Landscape
client name
PRIVATE
year
2023
Consumer behaviour among leading manufacturer
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service: Customer Satisfaction I sector: Construction
The challenge
A major paint company faced a shifting market: online sales grew, specialty stores competed for relevance, and brand trends evolved. The client wanted an ongoing, detailed view of market size, channel balance, brand performance, and consumer behaviour—not just a one-time report. Without consistent data, they risked making reactive, instead of proactive, strategic decisions about channels, products, and branding.
The approach
USP designed and executed a continuous market tracker, tailored specifically to the dynamics of the consumer paint category.
Key elements of the approach included:
- Multiple measurement moments per year, ensuring both short-term sensitivity and long-term trend reliability
- A channel-split research design, covering both online buyers and specialty store buyers
- A value-based market model, allowing realistic estimates of market size, channel share and brand performance
- Deep integration of consumer journey insights, from orientation and choice drivers to purchase behaviour and spend
Rather than overwhelming the client with raw data, USP structured insights around the strategic questions that mattered most.
The insight
The tracker revealed a market that was not declining, but rebalancing.
Key insights included:
- Online continued to grow, both in value and relevance, strengthening its position as a structural pillar rather than a temporary alternative
- Specialty stores stabilised after years of decline, underlining their enduring role in advice-driven and higher-involvement purchases
- Category shifts showed recovery in wall paint after earlier contraction, while other segments remained under pressure
- Brand leadership proved resilient, but subtle long-term shifts signalled where competitive gaps were narrowing or widening
Crucially, the research demonstrated that non-significant annual movements, when viewed in isolation, became strategically meaningful trends when tracked consistently over multiple years.
The tracker highlighted a market undergoing adjustment rather than decline.
Key findings included:
- Growth in certain channels , reflecting evolving consumer preferences and buying behaviour.
- Stabilisation of other channels , underscoring their continued relevance for specific purchase occasions.
- Category movements , indicating areas of recovery alongside ongoing challenges.
- Brand resilience , with subtle shifts suggesting changing competitive dynamics over time.
Importantly, the research showed that minor year-on-year changes, when tracked consistently, revealed valuable strategic trends.
The impact
The tracker became a strategic reference within the organisation, enabling the client to:
- Ground discussions in objective market insights
- Balance immediate tactical choices with long-term brand and channel strategies
- Align online and specialty channels based on consumer data
- Anticipate trends with early signals instead of waiting for major changes
By simplifying complexity, USP helped the client shift from reactive responses to confident, insight-driven decisions.
Why USP
USP combined methodological rigour with strategic storytelling.
Not just measuring the market, but suggesting actionable improvements.
Through continuous tracking, careful interpretation and sharp synthesis, USP delivered insights that were trusted, comparable and strategically relevant year after year.
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