Branding Consumer Insights

Trend - Established food brands are partnering with candle companies to venture into the home goods space. Offering decadent scents and premium ingredients, these collaborations aim to inject the brand's identity into everyday life, providing consumers with a new way to experience its products.

Insight - Consumers often seek novelty in their purchases, gravitating to exclusivity and the opportunity to engage with brands in a fresh, unique way. Brands are responding by teaming up with leaders in adjacent industries, leveraging their shared reputations to attract consumers drawn to their designs or signature scents. Leveraging partnerships allows brands to expand into unconventional sectors, connecting them with consumers who may not typically interact with their products in the grocery store.

Trend - Gen Z is transforming the pickle market with a fresh, trendy approach that combines unique flavors, clean ingredients, and eye-catching branding. Good Girl Snacks epitomizes this trend with vibrant, Y2K-style branding and engaging social media presence. This demographic's obsession with pickles is reflected in the massive engagement on TikTok, where hashtags like #pickle and #picklesnack boast billions of views.

Insight - Branding plays a critical role in capturing Gen Z's attention, particularly for everyday pantry items. This generation's food choices extend beyond mere culinary preference, often serving as cultural statements that reflect identity and values. Take, for example, the resurgence of the pickle. Similar to past food fads, Gen Z's current fixation has elevated this familiar snack into a cultural touchstone, with brands capitalizing on its popularity through creative marketing strategies.

Trend - Oral care products are increasingly drawing inspiration from iconic brands and well-known names across the fashion, pop culture, and consumer packaged goods industries. These products often include toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouthwash, and floss, all designed to resonate with modern fan bases.

Insight - Social media platforms have connected younger audiences around shared interests, allowing them to engage with products in ways that reflect their digital habits. In response, brands across various industries are opening themselves up to cross-industry collaborations, aiming to attract fans of established brands and convert them into loyal customers. Businesses that effectively tap into current social media trends and influences are better positioned to capture the attention of young shoppers.

Trend - Toiletry companies are launching eco-friendly product lines with recycled and organic materials. Utilizing post-consumer recycled plastics, papers, and bamboo, these products further reduce the environmental footprint of single-use disposable papers, while only marginally increasing prices.

Insight - Environmentally-conscious consumers find pride in using products from brands that align with their personal values. These consumers are far more likely to purchase products with recyclable packaging, recycled materials, and without single-use plastics. These consumers believe in voting with their dollar toward products that make progress toward a genuine greener future. As a result, brands from typically unsustainable industries, such as toiletries, are now turning to recycled materials.

Trend - Brands are creating passive pop-ups, such as billboards or signposts, that beget consumers to engage with only a brief action. These are more engaging than regular billboards while not requiring much time from consumers. Additionally, brands do not need to staff these pop-ups, thus reducing costs.

Insight - The average person living in a major city faces hundreds of advertisements a day. To this extent, most simply filter out regular ads, leading to brands not leaving a lasting impression. While some brands try to launch full-scale pop-up events that invite consumers to explore a detailed activation, not all consumers have spare time for such activities, leading to brands finding a middle ground for pop-ups that beget enough interaction to leave an impression, but do not intrude on daily schedules.

Trend - Postcard-making workshops are becoming a popular feature at pop-up events, offering guests a creative, hands-on way to connect with the brand. These interactive sessions allow participants to create a tangible, personalized product that delivers a message and introduces a new brand to the recipient.

Insight - Consumers seeking unique shopping experiences are increasingly drawn to events that facilitate personal connections with brands and encourage sharing the experience with loved ones. In response, brands are designing pop-ups that allow consumers to create personalized keepsakes for those in their lives and invite these individuals to experience the brand. By focusing on consumers' desire for shareable moments, brands can attract an audience that values community throughout the product journey.

Trend - Brands in the dairy industry are redesigning product packaging to be more explicitly informative. These new packagings highlight the ingredients' exact nutritional benefits, such as benefiting gut health. Many such products are also advertising organic or eco-friendly ingredients.

Insight - While health-conscious consumers are explicitly aware of the benefits and effects of individual ingredients, this is not true of the average consumer. For consumers only beginning to shop for more healthy products, the nature of packaging plays a large role in buying decisions. This group is more likely to purchase products that explicitly advertise health benefits, as these labels assure customers they are making the correct choice. Brands in the dairy industry are adapting to this need.

Trend - Brands in the beverage space are creating coffee creamers with simple ingredient lists. These creamers are often plant-based or organic, and focus on conveying to the customer that they use as few chemicals as possible, resulting in better-for-you alternatives to traditional artificial creamers.

Insight - The average consumer is becoming increasingly aware of the nutritional benefits of products, particularly as regulations around food packaging increase, requiring brands to disclose potentially harmful ingredients. These factors have contributed to an increase in attention given to clean-label products, particularly those without compromises, across the food industry. As a result, brands in the beverage space are now reducing ingredients lists, and are instead prioritizing clean, simple recipes.

Trend - Both athletics brands and those adjacent to the sports industry are launching campaigns to support the inclusion of neurodiverse athletes. These campaigns include community activations, fundraising for charities, and sporting programs, thus building trust and good will with the communities.

Insight - As consumers become more socially conscious, their purchasing decisions increasingly reflect their values, particularly regarding inclusion. This shift in consumer behavior is evident in the sports industry, where there is a growing demand for brands to favor inclusion and show clear support for social issues. This trend is pushing brands to initiate and sponsor events, products, and endorsements that highlight neurodiversity in sports, thereby fostering a culture of acceptance and recognition.

Trend - Product packaging is increasingly being adapted to serve a function in conjunction with or separately from the primary offering. These packaging methods are predominantly employed in food and body care advancements, offering consumers functionality comparable to the product.

Insight - Modern consumers often value novel and interactive experiences and desire products with packaging that is as useful as the product itself. In response, brands are designing packaging with functional elements, aiming to provide buyers with a tangible experience that sparks excitement or surprise upon interaction. Businesses focusing on experiential product designs can appeal to consumers who prioritize novelty and immersive experiences in their purchases.