How To Grow Your Brand Without Alienating Loyal Customers

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Brand extensions create a dilemma: How do you grow without alienating the loyal customers who made the business possible?

Tilray Brands wanted to supercharge Manitoba Harvest, evolving the nearly 30-year-old brand from hemp food into the wider plant-based protein and functional super foods category.

"Insights are critical in being able to manage that balance,” she says. So, the marketing team embedded real-time consumer insights into three critical functions: product innovation, sales enablement, and cultural marketing.


Increasing need for speed in consumer research‍

"Gone are the days when we could take time to methodically plot out these long lead research studies," Rebecca says. "We need to be able to make real-time decisions that cater to our core consumer and our growth consumer in specific and tangible ways."

In addition to Manitoba Harvest, Tilray — a global lifestyle company — owns brands like SweetWater Brewing Company, Montauk Brewing Company, Breckenridge Distillery, and more in the cannabis/wellness, functional beverage, and CPG space.

Across its diverse portfolio, a central mission connects them all: empowering consumers to live better. "Being able to nuance data and understand how we relate to local audiences is really important," Rebecca says.

The timing is also critical, and real-time feedback is possible using insights platforms assisted by AI. Traditional research studies cost a significant amount of time and money. AI-assisted platforms require less of each.

"The low cost and low barrier make it easier to understand both your consumer and new categories," says Joshua Nuu-Steele, co-founder and chief revenue officer at Ideally, a consumer insights platform.


Using insights to drive innovation, sales, and PR

"We really needed to retain brand equity with existing consumers, while introducing creative elements that signaled a new fun, functional product range,” Rebecca says.

Manitoba Harvest found that the insights from product testing gave the marketing team confidence in key geographic areas where they could avoid confusion and retain consumers.

Tilray also taps into the consumer insights data for retailer meetings. For one meeting, it surveyed consumers on trending flavors, formats, and functional ingredients. Then, it used the data to present a trend analysis instead of the traditional sales deck. It also matched the data to the retailer’s existing products.

“We led them on a journey to identify the white space opportunity in their portfolio,” Rebecca explains.

Tilray also used the data to showcase its customization capabilities. "It really built credibility for us as a business and as a partner. It was a totally different approach to sales and marketing, which engaged and strengthened our relationship with them."

Consumer insights also allowed Tilray to tap into cultural moments, such as Dry January — a key marketing event in the functional beverage space.

Using the insights data, Tilray learned what consumers qualify as “dry.” Then, it used the results for public relations outreach.

"We took that to several media outlets, and we were able to be quoted and be participants in a lot of Dry January conversations," Rebecca notes.

The Dry January effort also led to product placement in several outlets.


Building the consumer insights pyramid

Joshua describes the consumer insights platform as a pyramid. At the base sits data from a usage and attitude study — a range of questions about the consumer's emotional and functional needs, where they're shopping, and which competitors they're purchasing.

Those insights generate opportunities to extend a product range, create a new service or product, or alter messaging or collateral.

In the middle are research frameworks — the concept and message tests. “That is the function that goes out to market, goes to the consumers that you need to speak to overnight, and comes back into the Ideally platform,” Joshua says.

At the top of the pyramid is the synthetic element, the AI-generated predictions, simulations, or audience models derived from historical human research. But they must be grounded in real human research with guardrails and consistent methodologies.

“A synthetic layer sitting on top of a decade’s worth of true research that has continuously used the same methodology — you will have very high confidence,” Joshua says. “Bringing the human in the loop is where you get the nuance, where you get the edges that really bolster both your creativity and your innovation.”


Applying lessons learned along the way

Tilray’s strategy to embed consumer insights across innovation, sales, and PR pays off across its brand portfolio.

"It helps us test and learn," Rebecca says.

Real-time consumer insights from humans assisted by AI make it possible to evolve a brand without losing the customers who built it.