Case Study: GEALAN

GEALAN is one of the leading suppliers of PVC-window profiles in Germany and Europe. The company supports its customers with innovative solutions and excellent services, not only concerning the product, but also through helpful information
materials.

Through continuous market observation and anticipation, GEALAN was able to make decisions about which customer groups to prioritize in its communication and sales strategy.

However, there was a lack of externally validated insights to ensure that the content of marketing communications, the channels used, and the brand positioning strategy were helping to build on the strong position in the market.

Therefore, GEALAN decided to set up a market research project with the overall objective to build more differentiated customer communications and services that could meet the needs of not only their buyers, but also the end customers. The client placed particular importance on mapping as accurate a perception of the brand in the market as possible to be able to identify opportunities for further development.

GEALAN approached us to investigate the German market with a particular focus on four of their most important target groups. Of particular interest was:

• How customers become aware of the supplier
• What criteria is used to select the supplier
• Which channels are used to gather information about the supplier
• How their customer is perceived in the eyes of the target groups
• What are their competitive advantages in the market

Assuming that the end customers, i.e. the buyers of the final product, and their preferences regarding the product features could influence the decisions of the direct buyers, GEALAN was also interested in getting to know the decision-making processes of the households better.

A total of 300 B2B decision-makers were interviewed (manufacturers, retailers, and architects), as well as 200 households who had recently made a decision about buying windows.

In the case of the households, the survey was conducted online, which allowed for a MaxDiff approach to gain an accurate insight into decision criteria related to the selection of windows. In this method, the respondent is prompted to weight between the most important and least important decision criteria accordingly.

The analysis of the data from the telephone interviews (CATI) of the three direct target groups was complemented by a regression analysis, which made it possible to identify the most important drivers in the selection of a supplier. In these and other attributes, we were able to compare the performance of GEALAN’s brand with that of their key competitors, and thus map their general position in the market.

Even before the project began, our client was clear on the fact that the survey should primarily serve to work on strengthening their market positioning in Germany. The collected data was analyzed with the help of advanced statistical
methods and a comprehensive report was created based on this. This enabled our client to take a closer look at detailed individual evaluations for all overarching goals, but also identify global themes.

While manufacturers turned out to be a rather loyal target group with a higher barrier to change suppliers, retailers expect quality, strong relationships, and support from suppliers. The target group of architects can be reached, on the one hand, through good services that make their work easier, but can also be influenced through the target group of households. The insights into the selection criteria of households were a valuable starting point for our client to communicate, further develop, and create supporting materials for direct customers.

While strengthening the company’s position was the top priority in the German market, this was also to be examined in another European market. Furthermore, the extent to which the findings from the German market could be transferred or
applied to this European market under consideration was also to be checked. Since the second European market is significantly smaller, the main challenge here was to generate a statistically usable amount of data for each target group. After this hurdle was successfully overcome, the same analysis could be generated and compared with the previously gathered data.

From the comprehensive analysis of these two key markets, GEALAN’s marketing and sales strategies can be developed further, and a solid foundation has been built for regular brand research to continue to strengthen its brand positioning.