Your go-to for getting the lay of the (industry) land
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Mintel at my agency to do consumer research, most often for new business pitches, or when an existing client is attempting to launch a new product or dip their toes into a new consumer sector. Understanding general consumer thoughts, motivators and desired on different industries and products helps us guide our creative, branding, and media strategy.
Pros
- beautiful graphs and visualizations that can easily be taken and put into your reports.
- a wide variety of topics and industries covered
- Mintel customer service reps are extremely responsive and are always willing to help you dig deeper into a topic if needed
- data accessibility -- you can download a pdf report, raw data, or just read articles
Cons
- it would be nice if Mintel got even more specialized with some of their industry/product groups. For example, we wanted to do research on what was happening in the consumer orthodontia space, but the best we could do is get info on consumer feelings around oral healthcare products like toothpaste, mouthwash, etc.
- If they offered a B2B version of this tool, that would be game changing.
- Affordability. Individual reports are quite expensive, but getting an annual subscription is probably also prohibitive for smaller businesses
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are new to an consumer-facing industry and want to get the lay of the land, this would be a great product for you. It could help you understand consumer wants and motivators, and would be helpful for keeping up with an industry, and for developing your own stance within that industry. If you're an agency, supporting a brand, Mintel is helpful when trying to develop brand strategies (branding, which claims are best to highlight, consumer profiling, etc).
