How can you create a brand and products that stand out in a crowded market? With shelves packed with legacy brands and new health or dietary alternatives, capturing consumer attention is more challenging than ever.
The ice cream market is no different. Established brands, vegan and protein-enriched options, and a multitude of other healthier alternatives are now available to consumers looking for frozen treats. To stand out on the shelves, brands need packaging that not only attracts consumer attention but also communicates their unique benefits effectively. Designing optimal packaging is a complex process that requires insights at every stage, from concept testing to final design validation.
Traditional surveys and focus groups alone often lack the depth needed to uncover these insights. This limitation highlights a need for more advanced research methodologies – those capable of exploring the subconscious factors that drive consumer behavior.
The Melting Point: Key Challenges in the Ice Cream Market
The ice cream industry faces a unique set of challenges due to market saturation. With a plethora of options – from classic flavors to exotic, health-conscious alternatives – consumers are overwhelmed by choices. This saturation has led to several key issues:
- Market oversaturation: The sheer volume of brands and product varieties makes it difficult for any single product to stand out and capture consumer attention effectively.
- Communicating Unique Selling Points (USPs): Limited packaging size makes it challenging for brands to convey unique benefits, such as being “seed-oil free” or “plant-based.” As a result, it is challenging to differentiate in the crowded market.
- Limited insights from traditional surveys: While surveys can gather consumer feedback, they often fall short in capturing the subconscious responses that play a critical role in purchasing decisions.
- Design effectiveness: Brands lack reliable data on which design elements truly attract and retain attention in a crowded freezer aisle, making it difficult to optimize packaging for maximum impact.
Traditional research methods only provide insight into what consumers claim to like, without revealing which design features resonate on a deeper level or influence purchase decisions.
Success Amidst Saturation
In the crowded ice cream market, one ice cream brand has exemplified the role packaging plays in overcoming key industry challenges. Launched in 2012 with a “fussy” design that overpowered its nutritional benefits, the Halo Top brand recognized the need for change and overhauled its packaging in 2015. The new design included a simplified logo, brighter colors, and most importantly, prominently displayed the total calorie count per pint on the front of each package. This strategic emphasis on the product’s low calorie count immediately communicated the product’s benefits to health-conscious consumers.
The decision to highlight the calorie count over other information was rooted in consumer psychology. By openly displaying the calories contained per pint instead of per serving, Halo Top simplified the decision-making process for shoppers, reducing cognitive effort and increasing the likelihood of purchase.
As a result of these design changes, the company not only enhanced its brand visibility but also resonated with consumers seeking a guilt-free indulgence. The packaging redesign led to a dramatic surge in sales, reaching $50 million USD in 2016. This packaging evolution demonstrates how understanding consumer behavior and leveraging neuromarketing insights can drive success in a saturated market. Today, other brands have replicated Halo Top’s strategy in pursuit of the same success.
Diving deeper: Advanced Package and Shelf Testing
How can other brands scoop up the same success? To address key challenges in the ice cream industry, a combination of advanced tools, traditional surveys and neuromarketing tools are required to uncover hidden consumer attitudes. CIAS Innovation, a sensory analysis, consumer science, and neuromarketing company, partnered with CoolTool by RIWI to tackle this research problem. With RIWI, CIAS leveraged advanced methodologies developed by cognitive psychologists to capture consumer attention and evaluate ice cream brand packaging designs.
Here’s how RIWI approached the CIAS packaging problem:
Step 1: Shelf Testing with Eye-Tracking to Assess Noticeability
By positioning various ice cream packages on a virtual shelf and randomizing their positions, RIWI leveraged eye-tracking technology to measure time to first fixation for each package. The resulting data revealed which designs were immediately eye-catching (Figure 1) and which missed the mark (Figure 2).
Figure 1: The heatmap reveals the packaging elements that captured the most visual attention from consumers during the eye-tracking shelf test. The shaded red and green areas represent the most frequently viewed elements.
Figure 2: The opacity map offers a reverse view of attention, highlighting the parts of the ice cream packaging that captured attention during the test. The clearer sections indicate higher visibility, while the darker areas represent parts of the packaging that consumers overlooked.
Figure 3: The gaze plot tracks how consumers’ eyes moved across the ice cream products displayed on the virtual shelf. It maps out the exact path of visual attention, indicating which packaging designs were noticed first and in what order.
Step 2: Drilling Down on Individual Designs
By testing the ice cream packages identified as noticeable during the shelf test, researchers were able to identify potential “blind spots” amongst the consideration set. Through an isolated lens, researchers were able to assess unique design elements like logo placement, text, and colors, highlighting opportunities to enhance focus and readability.
Step 3: Validating Design Modifications
After addressing the opportunities for improvement outlined by the isolated package tests, the modified packages were placed back on the virtual shelf to assess any potential changes in consumer focus.
The resulting before-and-after comparisons allowed researchers to understand the effectiveness of design modifications. By implementing an iterative approach, CIAS was able to identify winning designs and their elements, then measure their noticeability and overall consumer perception.
The Winning Scoop: Data-Driven Insights for Packaging Success
The use of eye-tracking technology in the research process provided invaluable insights into the performance of ice cream packaging. It allowed researchers to identify which packaging designs captured and held consumer attention most effectively, revealing which elements – such as logo placement, text size, and color schemes – contributed to a product’s shelf presence.
Furthermore, RIWI’s methodology enabled the brand to see how its packaging competed against other ice cream products on the shelf. By understanding consumers’ subconscious reactions and adjusting designs accordingly, the brand was able to communicate key product benefits more clearly, driving better in-store performance.
Matteo Bonfini, a Sensory, and Consumer Insight Consultant at CIAS Innovation, shared their experience using CoolTool by RIWI, “for us and for the companies we work with, it is important to understand if the position of the corporate brand is optimal and if the position of some symbols or claims makes it clear to the consumer. For example, a logo for which the company has invested heavily in processes or changes in raw materials (such as gluten-free or palm oil-free) cannot go unnoticed or be less noticed than less important information.”
The Future of Ice Cream Marketing: A Neuro-Informed Approach
As packaging designs continue to evolve, neuromarketing is set to play an increasingly crucial role in packaging design and marketing strategies. Here’s what researchers can expect:
Personalized Packaging: By analyzing neurological responses, brands can adjust colors, imagery, and messaging on packaging to directly appeal to specific consumer segments. Brands can create multiple packaging versions for the same product, each tailored to a different consumer group. These versions can then be distributed based on the demographics of specific retail regions.
Virtual Reality Testing: Future neuromarketing studies may utilize virtual reality technology to further simulate realistic shopping environments. This would allow brands to test packaging designs in immersive settings, providing enhanced data on how consumers interact with products on the shelves.
AI-Driven Design Optimization: Machine learning algorithms could analyze vast amounts of neuromarketing data to suggest optimal design elements in real-time. By identifying patterns in consumer responses, AI can help refine packaging features to maximize attention and emotional engagement.
Cross-Cultural Insights: Neuromarketing can offer valuable insights into how packaging should be adapted for different cultural markets. Understanding the neurological reactions of diverse consumer groups will enable brands to customize designs that resonate globally while respecting cultural nuances.
Ethical Considerations: As the neuromarketing field continues to grow, an increased focus on the ethical use of neuromarketing techniques can be expected. It is essential that these tools inform and enhance consumer choices rather than manipulate them. Transparency and consumer consent will become integral elements of ethical neuromarketing practices.
The neuromarketing discipline and its powerful combination of technologies, is transforming how brands approach packaging design. By providing insights into both conscious and subconscious consumer responses, designers can create packaging that not only captures attention but also resonates emotionally with consumers.
Looking to the future, it is clear that the marriage of neuroscience and marketing will continue to play a crucial role in the way brands seek to shape consumer experiences. For ice cream brands willing to embrace this innovative approach, the rewards will be sweet indeed.
