The Business Question:

Most beverage choices happen fast, guided by emotions, habits, and momentary cravings. Why does one person grab a gut-healthy soda while another sticks to a familiar favorite—and what subconscious forces influence those preferences?

We needed a method that could explore both what people say and what they feel, even when they can’t fully explain it.  

MDRG set out to understand what really drives beverage choice decisions in the grocery aisle using an emerging method: virtual audiences. 

The Approach: 

We partnered with Yabble and leveraged their Virtual Audiences platform, an AI-powered qualitative solution designed to simulate emotionally grounded human responses. 

Yabble created eight distinct personas based on real consumer data. Each persona reflected a unique mindset, lifestyle, and decision-making lens for a retail beverage customer that could potentially help guide messaging and brand strategy.

Our research explored each one through six behavioral science principles that consistently influence beverage choice: 

• Cue-Triggered Craving 
• Sensory Appeal 
• Choice Architecture 
• Social Influence 
• Brand Loyalty 
• Scarcity Principle 

We asked open-ended, behaviorally informed questions designed to elicit natural responses that reflect System 1 thinking.

The result was insight that felt instinctive, intuitive, and directly tied to how people experience beverage moments in real life.

These personas and their conscious and nonconscious behavior can now be used to better understand beverage customers, allowing brands to adjust their strategy for a stronger, more resonant connection with their consumers.

Why Virtual Audiences?

Consumers often cite reasons like flavor, health benefits, or price when explaining their choices. But their actions are often led by subconscious motivators. 

Here’s what the personas revealed: 

• Jake, the Social Influencer, is motivated by what looks good online and what’s trending. Visual appeal and cultural relevance are key. 
• Emily, the Health-Conscious Seeker, values clean design, transparency, and functional ingredients. 
• Linda, the Traditionalist, favors brands she’s known for years. Her preferences are tied to trust and familiarity. 
• Nina, the Story-Seeker, connects with purpose. She’s drawn to brand mission, craftsmanship, and authenticity. 

Each persona added rich emotional insight into how behavioral science shows up in beverage decisions. This moved our understanding beyond preferences and into the motivations that create loyalty and drive action. 

What Did We Deliver?

This study helped validate our behavioral science hypotheses on beverage consumers and gave our team a set of emotionally grounded personas that can guide brand strategy.

Just as importantly, it confirmed the practical use cases of virtual audiences. The results proved trustworthy and directly informed product development and strategy decisions. 

We delivered: 

• Clarity on the emotional and subconscious motivations behind beverage decisions 
• A model of virtual personas with strategic application potential 
• Messaging and packaging recommendations rooted in intuitive behavior 
• A replicable process for rapidly exploring emotionally-driven consumer decisions
  

What Now?

This work gave us more than just answers about beverages. It created a roadmap for understanding how consumers make fast, intuitive choices across categories—often before they can explain those choices themselves. 

With this evolving technology, we were able to test the validity and applications of virtual audiences and synthetic data. We feel confident recommending virtual audiences to supplement future research, with an understanding of its capabilities,  limitations, and potential to uncover valuable insights.

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Or, contact us today to talk more about how virtual audiences could add value to your next market research project.