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Building a Human-Centered Research Stack for a major beverage company

Edelman partnered with Remesh to help a major beverage company uncover authentic consumer opportunities in the fast-moving health and wellness beverage market. Using a hybrid research approach powered by AI and grounded in human insight, the team moved from broad exploration to validated messaging in just two months.

In the fast-moving healthy beverage category, everything looks like an opportunity for a new ingredient – but what actually is?

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Camille DeSantis, Edelman

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By combining AI-powered research tools with human-centered qualitative insight, Edelman and the beverage company successfully moved from open-ended discovery to fully validated messaging within a two-month timeframe.

The hybrid approach enabled the team to:

  • Explore emerging wellness opportunities quickly
  • Iterate on messaging efficiently
  • Ground claims in authentic consumer language
  • Validate messaging with confidence before stakeholder delivery

Most importantly, the final claims reflected not only scientific credibility, but genuine consumer resonance — positioning the brand for stronger future marketing activation in a highly competitive category.

The Challenge

The healthy beverage category is evolving rapidly, with new ingredients, claims, and wellness trends emerging constantly. But while many opportunities appear promising on the surface, Edelman and its client needed to understand which health and wellness claims would truly resonate with consumers.

The team wanted to go beyond trend-chasing and uncover:

  • How consumers naturally think and talk about health and wellness
  • Which claims felt emotionally relevant and credible
  • What messaging would support future marketing activation
  • How to validate claims quickly without sacrificing depth

The challenge was finding a research approach that could combine speed, scale, and rich human understanding within an extremely dynamic consumer landscape.

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The Solution

Edelman leveraged Remesh’s AI-powered hybrid insights ecosystem to design a structured, multi-phase research program that combined exploratory discovery, iterative testing, qualitative depth, and large-scale validation.

The program unfolded across four distinct phases:

Phase 1: Consumer Landscape Discovery

Using Remesh Live, Edelman engaged 150 health-conscious consumers in a live exploratory session focused on:

  • Health and wellness attitudes
  • Biological function perceptions
  • Consumer language around beverage choices
  • Emotional and behavioral drivers

Rather than testing pre-written claims, the session focused entirely on discovery. Insights from this phase directly informed claim development for the beverage company and Edelman team.

Phase 2: Claims Exploration

Next, Edelman used Remesh Flex with another audience of 150 consumers to evaluate:

  • Five health-related categories
  • Two claims per category
  • Emotional resonance
  • Perceived relevance and credibility

This stage helped the team identify which early claims showed the strongest potential before investing further in refinement.

Phase 3: In-Depth Interviews

To add qualitative nuance, the team conducted 10 one-on-one interviews through Remesh Video. These conversations explored consumer reactions to the refined “copyfied” claims in greater depth.

The interviews provided:

  • Rich contextual feedback
  • Deeper understanding of language interpretation
  • Emotional reactions to messaging
  • Clarity around credibility and comprehension

This qualitative layer ensured the final claims reflected authentic consumer language and understanding.

Phase 4: Claims Validation

Finally, Edelman conducted a large-scale validation session with 250 consumers using Remesh. The goal was to confirm confidence in the final refined claims before presenting recommendations back to the beverage company’s stakeholders.

This final validation phase ensured the messaging was:

  • Consumer-relevant
  • Scientifically credible
  • Emotionally resonant
  • Ready for future activation

Why It Worked

Remesh enabled Edelman to combine:

  • Speed at scale through AI-powered quantitative exploration
  • Depth of understanding through qualitative interviews
  • Iterative refinement across multiple phases
  • Human-centered insight throughout the research process

The result was a research program that delivered both strategic confidence and authentic consumer understanding — without sacrificing agility.

Want to explore how Remesh can supercharge your next project? Request a demo.

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