Who uses Great Stuff?
“We do a lot of qualitative research first, so we get a gut feeling,” Fabritius explains. “Then we prove it quantitatively.” So they went to the stores and watched people that picked up the product, inspected the label, and put the can back down—and then asked them why they didn’t make the purchase. During this process, they learned many things and were able to quickly identify the core users of Great Stuff. The firm affectionately calls these frugal do-it-yourself home-owners as the “huntin’-fishin’-auto-truckin’” crowd. There are many home maintenance tasks that these folks would never pay someone else to do, and filling cracks is one of those tasks. Great Stuff was feeling heightened competition for shelf space in home improvement stores, where Great Stuff was sometimes perceived as only seasonal. Further research discovered that the company had mistakenly assumed their product was seasonal and used primarily to block cold drafts. In fact, many people purchased the product in the su
