Understanding how parents and students choose notebooks

What is shaping pulp & paper

Paper and packaging demand is shifting from writing and printing grades towards packaging, hygiene and recycled products. Buyers are printers, converters, brand owners and schools, each with different priorities.

• E-commerce is driving packaging demand
• Recycled and sustainable grades are gaining preference
• Price and delivery reliability dominate B2B buying

A stationery and notebook brand, working in Twelve cities. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A stationery and notebook brand

Sector

Pulp & paper

Team engaged

Market Research

Services

Consumer panel, Quantitative research, Social media marketing

Back-to-school season drove most sales, but the brand was losing share to cheaper notebooks and character-licensed products. Retailers also stocked many local brands with higher margins, which reduced shelf space for the company’s range.

• Deliver on the brief: understanding how parents and students choose notebooks.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of parents.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of retailers.
• Measure how widespread each pattern is, and explain the reasons behind it.
• Give the client evidence it can act on within 6 weeks.

The work focused on 1,600 parents and 200 retailers.

• parents1,600
• retailers200

Audiences we typically reach in pulp & paper

Printers and convertersPackaging buyers at brandsPaper tradersSchools and stationery retailersRecycling businesses

Coverage: Twelve cities. Market: India.

• India

A mixed-method design: structured research measured how widespread each pattern was, and qualitative conversations explained why.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Parent and student survey
3. 3Retailer interviews
4. 4Insight

We surveyed parents and older students about purchase decisions, school lists, price and design preferences, and interviewed stationery retailers about recommendations. Interviews were conducted in the weeks before the new academic year, when purchase decisions were fresh, with quotas by city and school type. Student interviews explored which designs felt “cool” at different ages, with parental consent for younger participants.

Consumer panelQuantitative researchSocial media marketing

parents

1,600

retailers

200

• Business respondents were screened on role, company size and involvement in the decision before being invited.
• Online respondents were drawn from verified panel members who matched the screening criteria, with quotas on key profile attributes.
• Qualitative participants were recruited purposively to cover the full range of experiences that mattered, rather than for statistical representation.

• The online survey was mobile-friendly and offered in respondents' languages.
• Interviews and discussions were led by experienced moderators using a guide agreed with the client.

• Digital fingerprinting and duplicate checks
• Attention, speed and straight-lining checks
• Review of open-ended answers
• Recordings and transcripts for every session
• Re-screening of qualitative recruits
• Logic and range checks on the final data
• Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures

• Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
• Significance testing on the differences that mattered
• Thematic coding of interviews and discussions
• Journey and decision mapping

• School lists and retailer recommendations shaped most purchases, while students influenced cover designs.

Understanding who decides what helped target each audience correctly.

• Build on the core insight: understanding who decides what helped target each audience correctly.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: school lists and retailer recommendations shaped most purchases, while students influenced cover designs.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The brand worked with schools on list-friendly packs and created designs with student input.
• Sales improved in the following season in cities where school partnerships were introduced.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: how strong is demand for recycled grades?