Sharpie at Newell Brands Delivers 87 Consumer Research Activities in Four Months
By rebuilding their owned audience strategy and activating Fuel Cycle’s full research infrastructure, Sharpie at Newell Brands built an always-on consumer insights program — and set a new bar for speed and sample quality.
The Client
Newell Brands Inc. is a global consumer goods company with a diversified portfolio of household, commercial, and lifestyle brands including Sharpie, Graco, Rubbermaid, and Coleman. The Consumer Insights team at Sharpie supports multiple brand teams across the portfolio — from writing instruments to baby products.
The Challenge
The team’s owned research panel had grown without clear recruitment criteria, and sample quality had drifted — with discard rates approaching the industry norm of 20–50%. At the same time, the Insights function was being asked to deliver more with fewer people, faster. AI was arriving as both a growing expectation and an unanswered question. Something had to change.
Rebuilding the Research Infrastructure From the Ground Up
Amanda Parker, Consumer Insights Manager for the Sharpie brand at Newell Brands, led a ground-up reset of the team’s consumer research program — turning a broad platform into a focused, high-output engine, and building the internal capability to run it independently.
Fuel Cycle supported the rebuild across four dimensions: a cleaner owned audience, a structured onboarding path, a full multi-method research toolkit, and AI integration at every stage of the workflow.
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1Rebuilt the owned audience. Narrowed from an open-door model to a focused 2,000–4,000 members segmented by sub-group: first-time parents, Gen Z writers, category shoppers. Continuous cleaning replaced one-time hygiene — quality compounds with every research wave.
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2The “parachute program.” Fuel Cycle introduced structured side-by-side platform coaching, a hybrid execution model, and full-service burst capacity for high-priority studies — giving Newell’s team a clear path from onboarding to self-sufficiency on their own timeline.
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3Full research infrastructure activated. Quant studies — conjoint, MaxDiff, concept tests — ran alongside qual: discussion boards, polls, focus groups, and IDIs. Fuel Cycle’s open API connected the owned audience to other tools already in Newell’s stack.
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4AI integrated throughout. AI accelerated synthesis across every study. The team also began piloting digital twins: AI models trained on real owned audience members, used to stress-test concepts before committing to full human validation.
The Tools Behind the Transformation
Four interconnected capabilities gave Newell the infrastructure to go from a drifting panel to an always-on, AI-integrated research engine.
We were able to save sample, save time, save resources and add value.
87 Studies. Cleaner Sample. A Renewed Partnership.
In four months, Newell Brands went from underutilizing the platform to running a weekly research cadence — with a clear AI-led roadmap stretching into 2026.
From Underutilized Platform to Always-On Intelligence Engine
Newell’s Insights team now focuses on what it does best: stakeholder storytelling and strategic recommendations. Fuel Cycle handles overflow capacity and runs proactive pilots — including the digital twin program — so the team stays ahead of requests rather than reacting to them.
Internal demand for research has grown significantly since the rebuild, and the team’s credibility with leadership has grown with it. The proactive model — conducting research before being asked — has been central to building that trust.
The roadmap into 2026 includes expanding the digital twin program, scaling the owned panel, and deepening AI integration at every stage of the research cycle.
Ready to Build Your Own Always-On Research Engine?
See how Fuel Cycle helps consumer insights teams rebuild panel quality, accelerate study turnaround, and integrate AI — without adding headcount.
- Focused, continuously cleaned owned research panel
- Full toolkit: surveys, conjoint, discussion boards, IDIs, and more
- AI synthesis and digital twin capabilities built in