Written by Redesigns and package changes carry more risk than most brand leaders expect. What can feel like a small risk with meaningful reward often injects 5%-20% of risk into your business, translating to tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Navigating that risk is one of our specialties at REAL Insight.
The biggest risk in any redesign is subconscious alienation. This happens when a shopper enters a category they shop every week, scans the shelf for their brand, and fails to notice it at the speed of shopping. They deselect the new package without even recognizing it, and likely select a competitive brand instead. The good news is this mistake is avoidable.
Tip 1: Recognize your brand’s guardrails
Before you start redesigning, build foundational knowledge of your brand’s current key equities through shopper eyes. This allows you to define the design’s “guardrails” for what is essential for success.
Our brains use assumptions and norms as shortcuts we may not even be conscious of: a brand’s structure, color and key visuals, category layout, key players, and prices. Understanding the impact of these shortcuts on your design ensures your brand stays in the consideration set. Our REAL Foundation is an at-shelf category exploration that helps brands build exactly this knowledge before a single design decision is made.
Tip 2: Leverage First Moment of Truth learning to accelerate your launch
Once you have initial designs, test them in the First Moment of Truth (FMoT). This is the three seconds your brand has to be seen, understood, and wanted. Learning how your designs perform here lets you identify which ones move the needle most while eliminating those that carry higher risk of subconscious alienation.
Our REAL Optimization and REAL Validation methods are built specifically for this moment, giving brands the qualitative depth and quantitative robustness to make confident design decisions before they go to market.