A Look at CPG Research Strategies to Implement Today

If you’re working in consumer packaged goods (CPG), you know one thing to be true: nothing is set in stone. Consumer tastes can turn on a dime with the emergence of new technology. New trends can bring brands into the spotlight or shroud them from view.

In an industry where today is miles ahead of yesterday, constant, quality research is the key to creating effective, quality campaigns. To create ads tailored to your consumer and the world they live in, CPG marketers must conduct research to know their audience through and through—and be ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Know Who They Are

You’ve poured hours into deciding who to target in your CPG brand’s ad initiatives—but what do you really know about them? I’m not just talking about what they’re drinking with their coworkers at happy hour or what music the kids are listening to nowadays. How well have you researched their loves? Hates? Fears? What are they thinking and feeling that you’re not asking the right questions to learn more about?

Take, for example, this Axe male fragrance ad from just last year. In a market that typically relies on hypermasculine images to sell their product, Axe took a step back and looked at what the bigger picture of their demographic research told them. Instead of big-biceped, brawny spokesmen, Axe’s “Is It Okay for Guys?” campaign showed their demographic asking their genuine questions about what defines masculinity and where they fit within it.

What seemed like a massive deviation from their industry’s ad norm proved to be an incredible example of what more profound research can do, resulting in hundreds of thousands of direct engagements and 40 million video hits. Take a page out of their playbook and think about the questions that your CPG brand (and its competitors) aren’t asking. Go deeper to get deeper.

Know What They Want

Your brand gives them all they want in a product, but do you know what they want from its advertising? When audience ad reception is so closely tied to sales, it’s crucial for CPG brands to keep their finger on the pulse of how their ad is performing. Social media provides advertisers with incredibly valuable research tools to do just that.

Gone are the days of just researching how many tweets included your brand’s name that day. The words that were tweeted around it are what’s important when it comes to consumer research—is your brand hashtag followed by love or hate? A smiling emoji or the dreaded upside-down smiley face of passive aggression? Social media research tools are an incredible resource for fine-tuning your campaign based on real feedback.

Know Where They’re Going

The research you conduct today could be out of date and out of touch by the end of the quarter. The fast-paced, ever-changing market CPG brands are looking to conquer is made for the research-savvy and data nerds of the world. Knowing what your audience liked yesterday and loved today is the first step to knowing what they’ll want to see tomorrow.