How does an iconic 300-year-old luxury brand tap into new opportunities in a modern global market? Fortnum & Mason explored US expansion using Liveminds Now, the 48-hour video qual service— getting actionable insights to drive consideration and growth.
Brand Overview
Fortnum & Mason - ‘The World’s Most Famous Cornershop’
Founded in 1707 in London’s Piccadilly, Fortnum & Mason is a global symbol of refined British luxury. Best known for its iconic food hampers, the brand offers an exquisite range of fine foods, teas, gifts and homewares. With flagship stores in London and international outposts in Hong Kong and at Heathrow, Fortnum & Mason has long served discerning customers around the world.
“Extraordinary food and joy-giving things” — Fortnum’s mission remains unchanged after more than three centuries.
The Challenge
Client: Jon Moss, Customer Engagement Director, Fortnum & Mason
Objective: Understand the addressable market for luxury food and food gifting in the United States.
“We already serve a lot of valued customers in the U.S., and were interested to find out more about the addressable market for luxury food and food gifting, including the competitive landscape, pricing and brand awareness of Fortnum's to understand opportunities that exist for further growth.”Jon Moss
Customer Engagement Director, Fortnum & Mason
The Liveminds Approach
To answer these questions quickly and affordably, Fortnum & Mason used Liveminds Now, the 48-hour AI-powered video qual service, to gather rapid, high-definition insights.
How Liveminds Now Works:
- ✨ 3 open-ended questions to 15 carefully targeted participants
- 🎥 Talking-head video responses (1 min each), collected via mobile
- 🤖 AI analysis and theme extraction, with smart quote selection
- 📄 Editable summary and video report, ready to share across the business
“We were really interested in using Liveminds for a number of reasons, speed to market and response time, genuine selection of real customers and prospects based on relevant targeting, clear and actionable insights with the depth of information sitting behind the AI summary.”
Target Audience
The participants were chosen using Liveminds Audience Selector.
- Age: 31–49, 50+
- Gender: Male & Female
- Location: United States
- Affinity: Customers of a competitor luxury food brand
Participants were recruited through hyper-targeted Meta ads based on deep behavioural data. They authenticated via LinkedIn, passed a 3-step screener confirming demographics and brand affinity, then submitted their video responses.
The Questions We Asked
1. Luxury Food and Drink
What do you know of luxury food and drink retail?
- How would you define ‘luxury food and drink’ brands, products and retailers?
- Which brands and / or retailers do you associate with it?
- What draws you to /or puts you off, a particular product, brand or retailer in this space?
2. Luxury Food and drink Inspiration
What inspires you to consider a particular brand, product or retailer in the luxury food and drink space?
- Tell me a story about how you may have read or seen something that shaped your awareness and consideration of a particular luxury food and drink brand or retailer
3. Fortnum and Reactions
Go and check out the website via this link. Have a look around the site. As you do so, please record a video that captures your gut reactions and tell us:
- What makes you more or less interested in buying from this site?
- Which products - if any - are you most interested in and why?
The Video Report
What Fortnum & Mason Learned
From the participant videos, Fortnum & Mason uncovered several key themes:
- Luxury means exclusivity: U.S. consumers define luxury food by quality, uniqueness and storytelling.
- Discovery is social: Awareness often begins through friends, influencers or visual content online.
- Brand recognition is growing: Many were familiar with Fortnum & Mason, but unclear on the full offering.
- Website is crucial: Design, storytelling and product photography drive desire — or diminish it.
“The insights are helping us shape our pricing, content and digital strategy for the U.S. — and they’ve already sparked ideas for targeted social campaigns.”
The Liveminds Experience
“We’ve been really happy working together with the team at Liveminds, they’ve been incredibly helpful; suggesting ways in which we can effectively achieve our research goals, working quickly to get the research to market and then providing a clear and easy to understand summary of insights and actions that are ready to share with stakeholders around the business.”Jon Moss
Customer Engagement Director, Fortnum and Mason
What’s Next?
Fortnum & Mason is now planning further research using Liveminds both for deeper exploration in the U.S. and for testing new markets.
"There are a number of projects that we’re thinking about partnering with the team on in the future including research in new markets alongside more in-depth exploration of key markets.”
Curious About Liveminds Now?
Discover how our 48-hour video qual service can help you explore new ideas, test your creative, or understand and improve results - fast.
➡️ Visit Liveminds.com/48-hour-qual or get in touch to discuss your project.
