Marketers can shave weeks from the time-to-market package design schedule using online research tools. Traditional focus groups provide a qualitative feedback to package design concepts. However, these can’t match the quantitative analysis of large, hand-picked audiences of consumers accessible to Web-based research firms.
Online research tools can build upon the preliminary findings of focus groups or even make it possible to dispense with them altogether considering their sometimes inconclusive results. One problem with focus groups is that they oblige participants to pick “a clear winner and a clear loser” in side-by-side comparisons where none of the specimens may be especially strong. The benefit of quantitative online responses is they can accurately pinpoint strengths and weaknesses of many design concepts. This can help creatives weed out dead-end design elements and validate concepts that might otherwise have been deemed too risky to pursue.
Though online methods differ procedurally, their goal is to streamline and quantify design review in a way that lets only measurably valid concepts emerge as candidates for further development. Audiences for the online reviews can be tailored as needed and as large as the project requires.
The Design Check method exposes participants to one package image at a time, erasing each picture after about 10 seconds. This is roughly the same amount of time a package on a store shelf has to attract the attention of a shopper. Then while the images are fresh in their minds, participants are given a series of questions that measure their responses to the packages. By relying entirely on recall after this brief exposure, it is believed the responses are the most meaningful to the critique of the design. Design Check uses groups of 1,000 participants to review each design.
A Design Check review can be turned around in about one week. Cost for online research varies widely. At $6,000, Design Check is affordable for smaller packaged-goods companies that may never before have invested in market research.
The online research firm Hotspex uses a method called PackSpex.
Here participants are shown multiple images, but never more than one variation of the client’s package in a group. The images that accompany the client design are of competitive packages for comparison. The respondents score design elements of the test packages quantitatively and give qualitative feedback on what they like and don’t like. For each package design evaluation, Hotspex likes to get input from 300 people. Consequently, 900 people would be recruited for an exercise reviewing three designs.
A Hotspex/PackSpex study ranges from $30,000 to $90,000 depending on the respondent profile and the number of packaging variants tested. Evaluations take roughly four weeks from receipt of images to delivery of the client report.
Affinnova is a company that uses sophisticated algorithms for their package optimization process. Participants are asked to look at 20 to 25 “choice sets” of three package images. Their algorithms determine the progressive makeup of the choice sets by excluding disliked design elements at each stage. This method can isolate survivable combinations of colors, packaging materials, text and so on. The process yields a handful of top concepts that do the best job delivering the desired brand messages. This method is also useful for updating legacy designs by separating the “sacred cow” elements from features that would benefit from change. An Affinnova package design optimization session averages about 650 participants.
Affinnova’s package optimization process ranges from $50,000 to $75,000, depending on the number of themes explored and variants tested, and takes roughly four weeks from receipt of images to delivery of the client report.
What are the limitations of online package design research?
Viewing small images on screen represents a perceptual transformation from an actual size package or prototype. That two-dimensional presence with a design may or may not induce the shopper to interact with it in a tactile, three-dimensional way. For this reason, it is suggested that feedback from focus groups is a good starting point for design because it yields preliminary concepts that then can be quantitatively tested via online methods. Additionally, online research is not a replacement for comprehensive, on-shelf testing.