Case Study: Ahold USA sharpens customer segmentation with Copernicus Marketing Consulting & Research

Ahold USA - Customer Case Study

Ahold USA, a major grocery retailer, faced weak sales and intense competition in the Northeast. To gain a competitive advantage and develop a deeper understanding of its customers beyond basic data, it hired the vendor Consumer Goods Technology and its partner Copernicus Marketing Consulting & Research to conduct a new market-based shopper segmentation project.

The solution from Consumer Goods Technology and Copernicus fused shopper-card, third-party, and custom-research data to create a single, actionable view of the consumer. This process identified six distinct customer segments, allowing Ahold to pinpoint and focus on its two "best customer" groups—one already highly loyal and another with high growth potential. The project enabled more targeted, programmatic digital campaigns and was rolled out across the entire organization with high-level executive buy-in, leading to a unified strategic focus on these key demographics.

Ahold USA

Sharon Eiswert

Director, Marketing and Merchandising