When "too cheap" hurts: validating a new rose-based liqueur
A new premium FMCG product priced below what people expected — which sounds like good news. Across 300 True Twins™, it turned out to be the central risk: nearly everyone thought it should cost more, yet the gap between its premium look and its accessible price made over half the audience suspicious. The study found the positioning that turns that doubt into trust.
Position a new product before it reaches the shelf
A new premium rose-based liqueur was ready for market, but its positioning wasn't settled. The brand needed to understand how consumers actually perceive it — on price, quality, and occasion — and decide how to take it to market. Getting the price story or the core occasion wrong at launch is expensive to correct once the product is on shelves and in customers' minds.
The headline isn't the price — it's the reaction to it.
The price-quality paradox: priced to win, perceived to doubt
Conventional wisdom says a product that feels more expensive than it is should fly off the shelf. Here, the same affordability that should have sealed the deal created hesitation — a premium-looking bottle at an accessible price made people ask "where's the catch?" The good-news number and the risk number are the same number, seen from two sides.
thought the product was more expensive than it is. The price is a positive surprise — there's clear room above the current price point, and no resistance to paying it.
are suspicious of the "accessible price + premium look" combination — wondering what's wrong with it. Cheap-for-what-it-looks-like reads as a red flag, not a bargain.
The resolution the data points to: an "accessible premium" narrative. 43% are already on the fence — convertible with the right message. Transparency about origin and the production process is what turns "where's the catch" into "what a find."
What the study told the brand to do
This is a gift, first and foremost — build the whole position around it
96.7% see the product primarily as a gift, and 91.3% would choose it over wine to give. The occasion is built in — housewarmings, name-day celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries. For gifting, the bottle's aesthetics are decisive (69.7% name them as the key value), while only 18% prioritize the contents — and people switch frames depending on whether it's a gift or for themselves.
The biggest barrier is mundane — and entirely fixable
The #1 thing stopping purchase isn't price or taste — it's that 53% don't know what to serve it with. That's not a product flaw, it's an education gap. Serving suggestions, food pairings and recipes on the packaging and in digital channels remove the single largest obstacle to moving from curiosity to repeat purchase.
Domestic authenticity is a premium asset — lead with origin, not just minimalism
92.7% perceive the product as domestic and authentic — a strong foundation for a national-premium identity. But 63.3% doubt its artisanal (vs. industrial) origin. The two findings combine into one instruction: communicate the Serbian rose, its place of origin, and the production process. Telling the origin story is what converts authentic perception into trusted quality — and answers the "where's the catch" doubt at the same time.
Turn one-time curiosity into a loyal base
56% would buy once out of curiosity; 42% see it becoming a regular stock item. That 42% is a real loyalty opportunity — but it needs targeted communication and a rewards program to convert from "tried it" to "keeps it." Curiosity gets the first purchase; the serving education and origin story earn the second.
A go-to-market story, not just a perception score
The brand came away with a coherent launch playbook: position the product as a gift (targeting celebration seasons and corporate gifting), resolve the price paradox with an "accessible premium" narrative built on transparent origin and process, remove the serving-knowledge barrier with pairings and recipes, and convert the 42% loyalty pool with a rewards program. The most counterintuitive risk — that an attractive price would breed suspicion rather than demand — was caught before launch, with the message to neutralize it already written.
The price was a pleasant surprise — and the audience's first instinct was to distrust it. A number alone would have called that a win. The why turned it into a strategy.
300 in-depth interviews — at the speed a launch timeline allows
Atani True Twins™ are individual AI models, each built from a real, recruited respondent. For validating a new FMCG product before launch, that meant qualitative depth at quantitative scale, fast — and the ability to test positioning before anything went to print.
Depth and scale together
300 in-depth interviews coded for sentiment — the kind of qualitative richness that usually means a handful of focus groups, delivered at survey scale and survey speed.
Grounded in real consumers
Every twin traces back to a real recruited Serbian respondent, so reactions to price, packaging and occasion reflect the actual market — including its skepticism.
The why behind the number
Coded open-ended answers explained why an attractive price bred suspicion — the insight a "94.7% would pay more" stat alone would have completely hidden.
Test positioning before print
Pricing, packaging emphasis and gift framing could be probed pre-launch, when changing them still costs nothing.
We ran 300 in-depth True Twin™ interviews across Serbia's four regions — Belgrade, Vojvodina, Šumadija & West, and South & East — spanning gender, age, education and settlement type. The instrument covered nine themes: spontaneous associations, personal relevance, price reaction, what the product offers (aesthetics vs. substance), trust in artisanal quality, the gift market, purchase frequency, brand perception, and barriers to purchase.
Responses combined quantitative scales with open-ended questions, and open answers were coded for sentiment and theme using language comprehension rather than keyword counting. Every verbatim quote was validated against its source response before inclusion.
This is a pre-launch product diagnostic on a validated panel, not a probability sample of the national population — read the percentages as strong directional signal on perception and positioning, not as official population estimates. Stated purchase intent and "would pay more" measure attitude, not till-receipt behavior. The sample skews urban and female, which matches the product's likely core audience but should be weighed when generalizing.
We hold no identity data. Our AI twins are built from anonymised interviews conducted by an independent research agency, processed under strict data separation, and governed by a Code of Ethics that covers every client, every use case, and every prompt. GDPR-compliant by design.