The role of consumer research in better brand decisions

Modern tactics and technology in consumer research take the guesswork out of advertising and innovation, reducing risk and increasing confidence. 

Two society-wide factors are affecting how consumers shop and purchase today. One is technology, which is always changing, of course, but is currently transforming in new ways, and the other is the pandemic, which has altered consumption permanently. 

The combination of these two massive societal shifts, along with more temporary elements, like economic uncertainty or policy changes that affect consumers, makes consumer research crucial. Having knowledge of how consumers feel and understanding why they make the choices they make, helps brands keep pace and even move ahead of the curve. 

In this article, I’ll cover why consumer research matters more than ever, the different types and how Zappi can help. Let’s dive in!

Quick hits: 

• Technology-inspired changes to consumer behavior continue to shape industries

• The pandemic altered consumption permanently

• Attention spans are shorter, trends happen faster

• Better understanding of consumer sentiment is needed to win

• Consumer behavior, emotions and context matter more than ever

Rising consumer expectations and rapid market shifts

Consumer behavior heading into 2026 is vastly different than it was just a decade ago. In 2016, brands were focusing on making sure websites were optimized for mobile, and though DoorDash, Uber Eats and Instacart existed, they weren’t exactly household names. 

Then, in 2020, everything changed. Even though the pandemic didn’t last forever, many of the changes in consumer behavior it caused continue to stick. Consumers are more likely to spend time alone, less likely to trust anything they see on social media and more likely to cut costs in one area in order to splurge in another. And, of course, online ordering, in-store pickup and delivery services continue to thrive. 

Though it was so long ago, “The only constant is change” as Greek philosopher Heraclitus said sometime around 500 BC is still perfectly accurate to describe consumer behavior today. 

One way that brands can respond to the shifting conditions is to invest in understanding their consumers. It’s easy to misinterpret market signals or to incorrectly predict what will happen next in an environment that’s changing so quickly. The cost of being wrong about what consumers want can be high. 

Let’s get into some of these costs.

The cost of guessing instead of knowing

If you’ve spent time in the business world at all, you’ve probably encountered quotes from Henry Ford and Steve Jobs about how customers don’t really know what they want. The Ford quote is debatable at best, and the Jobs quote is usually taken out of context. The full quote is:

“We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of research into our installed base. We also watch industry trends pretty carefully. But in the end, for something this complicated, it’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

- Steve Jobs

In other words, Jobs invested in consumer research, he just didn’t think focus groups were the best way to test or introduce complex, innovative products (Enter: Consumer insights platforms). 

For an established brand to ignore what customers say can lead to misaligned products and muddy messaging, which, in turn, bring about missed opportunities and wasted spend. The list of famous missteps is long, and includes some of the biggest brands on the planet.

Although these examples are from companies in different categories and took place over a span of about 40 years, they have something in common—better consumer research could have prevented expensive missteps. They also demonstrate how misalignment alone is costly, and it leads to missed opportunities, making it even more expensive. 

Blockbuster, for example, lost market share and missed the chance to sell Warner Bros DVDs and the chance to purchase Netflix before it became the household name it is today. Tropicana lost money paying for a package redesign it couldn’t use and lost sales. 

Along with quantifiable financial losses, these kinds of marketing missteps cause a loss of trust among consumers. Rebuilding trust arguably costs more and takes longer than correcting a marketing mistake. Just think: How many people tried a different brand of orange juice when they couldn’t find their usual Tropicana and decided they liked the new brand? 

The solution is clear: Consumer research helps brands limit misalignment and poor messaging and remove much of the risk from their advertising and innovation processes — as long as it’s conducted using modern methods and allows for a continuous loop of testing, iteration and optimizing. 

Quick hits: 

• Consumer research must keep up with changing consumer behaviors

• Blending observational and behavioral research provides depth

• Results must include large-scale quantitative research in order to confirm patterns

• Demographics don’t offer enough information; emotional and contextual information is necessary

• Predictive technology can identify unmet needs and emerging trends and behaviors

A blend of qualitative and quantitative insights

Qualitative data opens a window to consumers’ thoughts, feelings and motivations. It’s the psychology that underlies why someone chooses Product A instead of Product B. 

Quantitative data reveals patterns and trends that result from consumer behavior. It shows how many people chose Product A instead of Product B. 

To get the fullest view of what consumers are doing and why, you need a blend of the two types of data. The combination of carefully and accurately collected behavioral data and observational data creates a picture of both what consumers are doing and why they are doing it. 

Historically, qualitative data collection has been through interviews, focus groups and other one-on-one or small group settings and quantitative data collection has been larger-scale, through surveys, polls or questionnaires. 

Always-on listening instead of one-off studies

A brand like PepsiCo likely has a different audience than a brand like Metamucil. In a contrast like that, it may seem like demographics tell the whole story. But, in any given category, consumers have more than one option, and that makes understanding the emotional and contextual elements of their choices crucial. 

Moving beyond data points like age, culture, gender and so on means finding out when a person chooses to have a soft drink—is it to cheer themselves up after a difficult afternoon? Is it with their dinner each day or only when they eat out? That kind of emotional and contextual information can inform when and how a brand can reach consumers. 

With a clearer understanding of why consumers make particular choices, brands can begin to discern unmet needs and track any emerging behaviors. This is how brands are able to get a head start on breakthrough innovation concepts to deliver what consumers are looking for or even what they don’t know they need or want yet.

Quick hits: 

• Foundational research is still required

• Evaluation of concepts, ads, messages and storylines complements the foundation

• Continued iteration and exploration of new ideas makes innovative direction clearer

• Meeting consumers where they are is key

Foundational research

Even though the depth and direction of customer research have changed significantly, the importance of solid foundational research has not. Understanding the market and its current condition, along with the attitudes of consumers and how they can (or should) be grouped together in segments gives brands a strong base to build from. 

The idea of a strong foundation is enshrined in the English language in an idiom: “don’t build your house on sand.” For brands, that means having a deep understanding of both what’s happening in your category and who buys your product. 

Modern consumer research doesn't skip over the basics. Instead, it layers creative and communication research on top of foundational research, building a stronger, more stable picture of the customer. 

Creative and communications research

Knowing who your customers are, and even knowing something about why they’re making the purchasing decisions they are, helps to direct your advertising creative and messaging in the right direction. 

By comparing creative concepts to learn which has the higher emotional appeal, for instance, some of that risk is removed. Further testing to find out which elements of an advertisement appeal to consumers and drive recall as well as positively impact the brand lessens the risk of new creative ideas even more. 

With each round of testing and iterating, brands are both lowering the risk of a big campaign and improving the brand’s reputation with it. 

Product and innovation research

Once a continuous learning loop with consumers is implemented, brands have an opportunity to begin exploring new ideas, features and propositions with consumers in a way that allows validation of concepts well before too much budget has been invested. 

It’s still possible for teams to have bad ideas or to introduce concepts that miss the mark with consumers. The difference is that those ideas and concepts can be tested before they become expensive mistakes. 

Another perk of modern consumer research is that it’s fast. Testing a new idea, concept, pack design or other element can generate results in hours rather than days or weeks. Teams can narrow their focus to the ideas that work best and build incrementally without too much time in between. 

Experience and journey research

Sometimes people describe the media landscape as being fractured. It’s no longer two or three big avenues, like TV, radio and outdoor advertising. Instead, brands have many more options, such as: 

• Ads on streaming services

• Retail network ads

• Partnerships with influencers

• Digital ads

• Podcast ads

And that’s an abbreviated list! Matching where ads appear with where your consumers are is only one piece of the puzzle. Understanding consumer behavior across touch points is another piece that makes your advertising strategy a more complete picture. 

If a consumer sees an ad promoting an app on social media, they may not pay close attention, but perhaps the ad creates some recognition. If one of their favorite content creators promotes the same app, perhaps they are more prone to look up the app and consider downloading it. 

Rather than thinking of the media landscape as being fractured, or broken, it may be helpful to think of it as a puzzle, with many pieces that connect to create a cohesive picture. Consumer insights can help brands identify points of friction where the pieces don’t quite fit together, opportunities that aren’t necessarily obvious and loyalty drivers that bring customers back again and again.

Quick hits: 

• Consumer research builds confidence in decision-making

• The right research can avoid expensive mistakes and clarify the best idea

• Deep consumer understanding sharpens language and gets messaging just right

Builds confidence in early-stage decisions

The earlier a brand does consumer research, the better the ads are going to be. Knowing sooner what works and what doesn’t means focusing on the best ideas sooner. 

Helps teams iterate quickly

The test → refine → test loop improves quality and impact, but it does something else: 

It speeds up the entire process. 

Traditional qualitative consumer insights requires painstaking data collection, in either one-on-one or small group formats. It means spending money and time for researchers to conduct interviews. It’s like taking a stroll along a beautiful pathway during a long summer evening. 

While that sounds nice in theory, modern technology allows consumer research to be more like taking a bullet train between cities — which is more aligned with what brands need today. Brands can test ideas and start to optimize in hours, whether the goal is to move into a new market, introduce a new product or to test an innovative offer. 

Accurate and fast feedback from consumers means that brands can move forward with initiatives confidently—and with benchmarks so they can continue to measure progress, that they can learn from over time as well.

Quick hits: 

• Research must be faster than changes in the market

• Frameworks provide standardized metrics for measurements

Automated testing speeds up insight generation

One of the keys to “faster” is automation. When your consumer insights research results are incorporated into your workflows, your team can quickly and easily run tests and continually move toward a more consumer-centric approach to advertising and innovation. 

Zappi is easy to use, and on average it takes 12 hours for brands to move from idea to insight. Automation is one of the reasons testing can be carried out so quickly, whether it’s a new idea or a new campaign. As Matt Cahill of McDonald’s shares in a Zappi podcast episode, this helps teams “get smarter faster.” Cahill continues to share that moving some decision-making to the earlier part of the whole process means there’s less stress and more focus on making an idea effective — exactly what Zappi has enabled his team to do. 

Standardized metrics across markets and campaigns

Without standardized metrics, it’s impossible to compare or to clearly see what works and what doesn’t. Think about it in different terms. Imagine you want to compare whether you get better prices at one grocery store compared to another, so you save your receipts. 

On your trip to Grocery Store A, you bought a week’s worth of groceries based on a menu plan and list you made on a relaxed Sunday afternoon. When you went to Grocery Store B, it was a quick trip after work to grab something to make for dinner for the next two nights; you have a couple of ideas but want to see what’s on sale. 

You can’t really compare prices based on those two trips. Consumer research is the same. Metrics may include things like emotional response or message clarity, which are subject to context. 

Setting benchmarks by market, category and channel provides a level ground for comparisons. Zappi helps brands establish consistent metrics so that strengths and weaknesses are clear quickly. 

Overall, incorporating consumer insights at every stage of the creative process results in more effective and less risky ads and innovation. And what’s more, over time, Zappi’s platform connects insights across touch points so that brands are capable of learning more and connecting with their consumers even better over time.