Using the voice of the customer to shape a brand launch

In 2025, Tyson Foods launched Buena Mesa, a new line of seasoned and marinated fresh meats. To help Buena Mesa achieve its strategic goals of targeting new customer demographics, Tyson used Scintilla to gain store-level and customer insights that guided their targeting of key shopper segments—all while launching the brand in just 90 days.

See how input from Scintilla helped shape decisions about branding, flavors, and selection, tailoring Buena Mesa’s offering to Walmart shoppers ahead of a tight launch window.

The opportunity: Deliver a new brand to the Walmart customer

Buena Mesa was conceived with cross-dimensional goals of growing Tyson’s unit sales, traffic, and market share. Its strategy was based on targeting new customer demographics, namely young and Hispanic shoppers, to expand Tyson’s customer base at Walmart and add incremental sales.

To prepare in time for launch, Tyson needed insights to inform quick work across aspects of the brand including branding, flavors, and selection.

The approach: Hearing directly from the customer

Tyson leaned on Scintilla to help develop their strategy rapidly. They needed deep insights into how Buena Mesa would appeal to young and Hispanic audiences—factors like branding, packaging, and shelf presence would be crucial to making the brand a hit.

Tyson used Customer Perception to gather specific, granular customer input on those areas, helping them refine the brand’s positioning before launch.

Focusing on key demographic data

Subsequent surveys provided insight into the overall state of the category, including how well each product indexed with target demographics and how likely customers were to purchase different products.

With their assortment solidified, Tyson next needed to make sure Buena Mesa products were readily available to target customers. They paired Scintilla’s store-level capabilities with other syndicated resources to evaluate the assortment available in key regions, then compared it to clustering demographic data in those areas. The result: Tyson ensured that Buena Mesa had a strong presence near key shoppers.

The results: Conception to launch in 90 days

This customer-focused, data-led approach culminated in the omnichannel launch of Buena Mesa in strategic Walmart markets in just 90 days.

As sales data rolled in, Tyson compared stores with Buena Mesa products to a control group of stores to understand the brand’s impact. The outcome: sales at the Buena Mesa stores demonstrated strong growth of 12 to 15% during the test period, about twice as much as the control group’s 5 to 8%.

Next, Tyson dug deeper into sales incrementality to validate that the new products weren’t simply capturing sales from other products. Findings were favorable: Shopper Behavior indicated that 40 to 50% of Buena Mesa sales were incremental. Customers also quickly began making repeat purchases, indicating that Buena Mesa was meeting a customer need.