Beyond the checkout
You spent months perfecting that new design. It looked stunning on the screen. It wowed the internal team. Then it hit the shelf. That’s when the plan meets reality.
The problem isn't the design itself. It's the assumption that the world will stop and look.
Landing a sale is just the first battle. To win, you must conquer two different moments of truth. We often only test one. That’s where the best opportunities get missed.
Moment 1: The crush of the context
Most packs are born in quiet offices. Clean walls. Perfect lighting. This is not the store.
In the real aisle, your beautiful pack is fighting. It’s buried in shadow. It’s squeezed between last week’s massive promotion and a cheaper rival. A louder pack is screaming the same colour.
The shelf context dictates visibility. It doesn't care about your font choice. The pack wasn't built to fight for space. It wasn't tested in the chaos of competition. It needs to cut through fast.
Moment 2: The real-life test
Great. The pack survived the shelf. It made it into the basket. Job done? Not even close.
The real relationship starts at home. This is the second moment of truth.
Does it fit the fridge door? Can you open it without a pair of pliers? Does it sit proudly on the counter, or is it instantly exiled to the back of the cupboard?
Packs don't just trigger a purchase. They have to live, function, and earn their place in daily life. This is where a design either becomes a favourite fixture or a daily annoyance. You can't capture this frustration on a numbered scale.
From scores to stories
The standard pack test flattens the product into a one-shot purchase decision. Visual assets. Split-second recognition. Purchase intent. That’s it.
This misses the long game. A pack must stay relevant every time a person sees or uses it.
To understand real-life performance, you need to listen. Stop asking closed questions. Start gathering stories. We need the offhand comments. The small irritations. The casual praise. The insight is in the narrative: “It looks smart, but leaks when it lies on its side.”
Our process captures these stories at scale. We use advanced text analysis to summarise hundreds of unstructured narratives. This surfaces the real, recurring themes—what works, and what genuinely frustrates people—without turning authentic feedback into bland averages.
If you want a better pack, test both moments. One tells you what cuts through. The other tells you what stays. Together, they give you the complete picture.
