Bridging the Market-fit Gap with Strategic Insights

The Challenge :

Positioning a Biomaterial in the coatings applications with limited market understanding

A global company was leveraging the pulp mill biorefinery concept to develop bio-derived materials. Focused on multifunctional bio additives, already successful in some cosmetic applications, the company struggled to replicate its success in coatings due to limited knowledge about potential companies and applications that would value these materials:

• Limited reach: Identifying the right companies and key stakeholders to connect with to accelerate the product launch.
• Insufficient market understanding: Determining the most suitable coating applications for the product.
• Resource constraints: Managing a team that must prioritize focusing on the highest-value activities.

SpecialChem Insight Solutions

4 to 6 months to assess the market potential and needs

To gather market feedback in a short timeline, we created unbranded material concepts (properties, benefits, usages, etc.) that we shared with our broad community via digital channels. Targeted professionals had the possibility to answer a first set of questions online then to connect with us for a deeper technical discussion.

We collected insights through online feedback, behavior analysis, promotion performances and phone interviews with carefully selected contacts. We built a detailed report based on the learnings with recommended next steps for the client.

The Results

In 4 months, our team reached out to our coating community to thoroughly confirm and rank the most promising applications and identify value.

We validated critical selling points, such as:

• increased bio-content without compromising quality
• minimal transition effort for water-based systems
• potential cost optimizations

We recommended focusing on architectural coatings, due to the specific performance benefits we identified and ranked other promising opportunities within the coatings market, including specific use in automotive, industrial, leather applications and seed coatings.

We engaged with over 1200 targeted contacts and conducted 16 interviews to facilitate connections among users eager to collaborate and assess the technology.

We gathered technical data, including information on biodegradability, starting formulations, regulations, and comparative data against specific benchmarks to ease the comprehension of market situation and challenges.

Additionally, after analysis of regional and regulatory specifics in Europe, North America, and APAC we were able to recommend top areas and priorities to target.

Moreover, to generate further interest, we recommended producing specific additional data for several application/region pairs, focusing on the two confirmed main targets, Europe and North America. We also suggested a strategy for positioning in Asia, a region characterized by different trends and needs.

The findings and direct connection with 9 coatings companies willing to test the materials helped the Company validate the product's value proposition in the target applications, and successfully accelerate market entry. Two years later, the product became an integral part of the market.