From Misunderstood to Market Mover
European Ag Chemical Company: Correcting Misperceptions to Avoid a Price War
The Challenge:
The market was soft. Farmers were spending less. A flagship product in the company’s crop protection portfolio was losing share and under pressure to cut prices. Brand managers felt boxed in — stuck between falling demand and rising price sensitivity.
Internally, the team believed they had a good product, but they couldn’t figure out why farmers weren’t buying. Should they drop price? Relaunch the product? Or walk away from the segment?
They brought in CVA to find out.
The CVA Breakthrough:
The team began with a cross-functional CVA workshop to build a shared Value Scorecard. They identified the key attributes farmers used when choosing herbicides: weed control efficacy, crop safety, ease of mixing, time to see results, service/support, and price.
Using this scorecard, they compiled two sources of performance data:
- Objective third-party field trial results
- Customer survey responses from farmers who used various brands
What did the Value Landscape reveal?
A major disconnect:
- According to field trials, the brand delivered excellent performance — solidly in the Good Deal Zone, offering superior weed control and crop safety for a fair price.
- But according to farmers’ perceptions, the same brand was placed in the Bad Deal Zone — perceived as underperforming on key attributes, despite its actual results.
The culprit? Customer misperceptions. Farmers were significantly underrating three key attributes — weed control spectrum, mixability, and time to visible results.
Worse yet, they were overrating a competitor’s performance in those exact areas — meaning that the brand was being punished twice: once for being misjudged, and again for being compared to an inflated benchmark.
Strategic Moves (Powered by CVA):
- Repositioned Marketing from Product Push to Perception Correction
The team shifted the entire marketing strategy to close the perception gap.
- Before CVA: Messaging focused on features and formulation.
- After CVA: Messaging zeroed in on the 3 misunderstood attributes, showing side-by-side comparisons from trusted third-party field trials.
- Doubled Down on the Right Audience
Rather than targeting the entire market, they used CVA segmentation to identify which farmers were most misinformed (e.g., small- to mid-size operations in certain regions), and targeted those groups with:
- Regional demos and side-by-side test plots
- Trusted testimonials from local growers
- ROI calculators showing real-world yield impact
- Used CVA to Hold the Line on Price
Finance and sales teams wanted to cut price to recover volume. But CVA data showed the product was already a good deal — price wasn’t the issue. The real opportunity was to grow margin by correcting misperceptions, not shrinking it in a race to the bottom.
The Result:
Within one season:
- Share stabilized, then grew — despite flat market conditions
- The company avoided a price war and took a modest price increase
- The brand became a case study in perception-driven marketing
The CVA campaign was later featured in the company’s Marketing Excellence Program and used globally to train other teams facing similar challenges.
Why It Worked:
“CVA showed us that we didn’t have a product problem — we had a perception problem. It gave us the confidence not to cut price, and the insight to correct what really mattered.”
— [Marketing Director, Europe Region]
Without CVA, they would have likely dropped price, surrendered margin, and blamed the market. With CVA, they got to the root of the issue — and fixed it surgically.