Why (and how) to use research in your CPG food brand refresh
By Vanessa Doll
A CPG brand refresh requires a different research approach than launching a new food product or brand. The goal is to understand the equity your brand has already built, identify what is worth protecting or changing, and use research to make sure the refreshed brand moves “up” in consumers’ estimation. Research should inform strategy, design, and final validation—not simply confirm what your team already believes.
How is research different for a CPG brand refresh?
Research for a CPG brand refresh starts with the equity your brand already owns. Unlike a new brand, an established food brand has visual, verbal, and emotional associations that consumers may recognize before they even read the name on pack. A successful refresh protects the equity that matters while creating room for the brand to evolve with cultural, competitive, and category changes.
That doesn’t necessarily mean maintaining everything you have today. Sometimes your brand needs a complete repositioning to succeed. Regardless of the direction, the goal is to understand where your brand currently sits in the hearts and minds of consumers and make sure the refresh moves you in the right direction.
What should you learn during the discovery phase?
The discovery phase should establish how much equity your current brand holds and which attributes are responsible for that equity. It should also uncover truths about the category, consumers, competition, and store environment. Much of this work can happen without formal research, through observation, competitive analysis, store walks, existing data, and conversations with your team.
Benchmarking existing equity is best handled through professional research because consumers—not brands—build brand equity. Putting a mix of current and aspirational consumers through exercises such as association tests, flash exposure, and ranking helps identify which visual and verbal elements can be maintained, altered, or eliminated without losing current consumers.
Why do research objectives matter before testing?
Clear research objectives are essential before you begin any design research. Without them, it is easy to ask the wrong questions, collect interesting but unusable information, or create internally divisive outcomes because different stakeholders are interpreting the results differently.
Before you go into any research for design, you and your team must have clear objectives.
Quantitative research is generally the best approach for a benchmarking equity study because it allows you to gather intelligence across multiple consumer demographics and identify broader patterns. It also creates a basis of comparison for testing design concepts later in the process.
For a CPG packaging design refresh, research objectives might include improving shopability at shelf, strengthening on-pack navigation, or increasing quality perceptions. Once those objectives are established, they give your team a clear way to weigh the results and determine whether the work is moving in the right direction.
How can research inform the design phase?
Research becomes a design tool in the second phase of a CPG brand refresh. The findings, processes, and methodologies from discovery can help your team develop concepts that protect existing equity while addressing the opportunities identified through research.
Both quantitative and qualitative research can be useful during this phase. In-depth interviews with current users and competitor users can help you understand how consumers respond to specific concepts, language, claims, or visual cues. Eye-tracking can provide additional insight into how consumers navigate a package and what they notice first.
The research methodology you choose depends on your team. If you already have one strong lead concept, you may be able to skip additional concept-selection research and move directly into validation testing. We typically use research during the design phase when we want to determine a lead concept or compare variations of a single idea.
The important thing is to keep returning to the objectives your team aligned on at the beginning. Which concept is easier to find at shelf? Which one conveys higher quality? You get the gist.
What is validation testing for a CPG packaging refresh?
Validation testing determines whether the refreshed design has improved against the equity established at the beginning of the project. Before production or activation, the team should return to the original benchmarking study and repeat the research as closely as possible, using comparable consumers, package stimuli, questionnaires, exercises, and objectives.
This type of research is called validation testing because you are not starting over or asking a whole new set of questions about the design. You are testing “where you were” versus “where you are” directly. That comparison gives your team a clear understanding of whether the refresh achieved its intended objectives.
How should CPG brands use research to measure a successful refresh?
A successful CPG brand refresh should show measurable improvement against the objectives established during discovery. Research should help the team understand whether the refreshed brand is stronger, more relevant, and more effective than the brand it replaces.
To learn more about basic research, check out this article.
Vanessa is Partner & Director of Relationships at Freshmade. From bar owner to account lead, strategist to agency owner, she’s spent years in the trenches with leading CPG brands modernizing and optimizing their positioning to maximize growth.
Freshmade is a CPG Branding and Strategy Design agency focusing on food branding and package label design. We design for digital, from campaigns to websites, and have an in-house photography studio. Our goal is to accelerate growth for our clients through mouthwatering, thoughtful brand building and design. Notable clients we have designed CPG packaging for include Bolthouse Fresh, Evolution Fresh, Hartz, Publix, Mastronardi (Sunset), Annie Chun’s, Factor, and many more
