CPG market research: know what to change before the next pack ships
20–30 minute AI-moderated interviews with screened category buyers for concept, pack and brand research, from 4M+ vetted respondents across 58 countries.
Walk me through the last time you made this choice. What tipped it?
The deciding reason surfaced four follow-ups deep, not in the first answer.
Trusted by teams at
CPG market research is the practice of consumer packaged goods brands testing concepts, tracking brand health, and understanding shopper behavior — typically through survey panels, in-store ethnography, or syndicated category data. User Intuition is CPG market research software powered by AI-moderated interviews, running 20–30 minute conversations with consumers screened for category purchase across categories, packaging, claims, and concepts, not stated interest. Across 3,420 AI-moderated consumer interviews with CPG brands, User Intuition found that stated purchase drivers like price, convenience, and habit masked the emotional and identity-level motivations that predict switching, trial, and loyalty. User Intuition surfaces those drivers by letting consumers narrate the decision in their own words across 5-7 levels of probing. A User Intuition CPG study starts at $150, returns results in 24 hours, and is backed by 4.9/5 on G2 and 5/5 on Capterra. The output is practical: motivation hierarchies, packaging signals, concept-test rankings, and shelf-decision evidence for brand, innovation, and category leadership at CPG companies.
What is CPG market research with User Intuition?
CPG market research with User Intuition means AI-moderated consumer interviews for concept, packaging, claims and brand research. Each 20–30 minute interview ladders 5–7 levels into why shoppers choose, switch and repurchase, with 200+ panel interviews in 24 hours from a 4M+ vetted panel across 58 countries; your own panel provider or customer list runs in parallel as participants respond.
Who is CPG research with User Intuition for?
Insights agencies and CPG brand, insights and innovation teams who need the consumer's reasons, not just scores, inside the decision window.
How does AI-moderated CPG research work?
Bring your guide, pack and concept stimulus, screeners and quotas. The AI moderator interviews screened category buyers in voice, video or chat, and every finding links back to the recording.
What do you get from a CPG study?
Themes with verbatims, segment-level reads, an editable presentation, and every transcript and recording, in 24 hours.
Why does CPG market research break at decision speed?
Shelf, pack and concept decisions move in weeks. Here's what CPG researchers tell us, and how User Intuition closes each gap.
- Sound familiar?
By the time the groups are recruited and analyzed, the launch window has closed.
200+ interviews in 24 hours
Field screened category buyers today and read their reasons tomorrow, while the decision is still open.
- Sound familiar?
We have twelve concepts and budget to CLT three. I can't tell which ones will drive repeat.
Triage concepts before the CLT
Screen 10+ concepts in a day. Laddering 5–7 levels deep ties each one to the health, convenience or emotional benefit behind it, so only the strongest reach costly testing.
- Sound familiar?
The pack redesign ships on a preference score, and nobody can tell me why people prefer it.
Show the pack, ladder the why
Participants react to the pack, claim or shelf image you load at setup, with a parallel cell for each stimulus order (A then B, B then A), each read on its own. The moderator probes what signals quality, trust or greenwashing, in time for the planogram decision.
- Sound familiar?
Gen Z and our loyalists see two different brands, and one study never covers both.
Segment-level reads in one study
Set hard quotas for each segment, recruit from our 4M+ vetted panel across 58 countries or bring your own sample, and compare how each one describes the brand, in their own words.
- Sound familiar?
Our quant concept test says which idea won. Explaining why means fielding a second study.
The why, from the same respondents
Send respondents from the end of your own survey straight into an AI-moderated interview, so the reasons come from the people who scored the concepts. Every transcript and screener answer exports to CSV for your own analysis.
- Sound familiar?
Every concept test is a one-off deck. Next quarter another team starts from scratch.
Every study compounds
Findings land in your Intelligence Hub, searchable by brand, claim and segment, so the next brief starts from what you already know.
From consumer question to shelf-ready intelligence
Design The Study
Every study starts with a research plan. Define your objective — concept testing, packaging validation, brand perception, or shopper segmentation — then bring your own guide, or our AI builds the discussion guide, screener, and timeline tailored to CPG decision cycles.
AI Conducts the Conversations
Each participant completes a 20–30 minute AI-moderated interview. The AI moderator adapts questions in real time, probing deeper when consumers reveal purchase triggers, brand switching motivations, or packaging reactions that shape shelf strategy.
Get Evidence-Backed Results
After interviews are complete, you receive a full research report with quantified findings, participant verbatims, and strategic recommendations — organized by shopper segment, product line, and motivation hierarchy.
Create Compounding Intelligence
Every study feeds your searchable Intelligence Hub. Query past research across concept tests, brand health studies, and seasonal campaigns. Surface patterns across categories and re-mine interviews for new insights — so your consumer knowledge compounds over time.
How CPG Teams Use User Intuition
Concept Testing That Maps Motivation Hierarchies
Launch AI-moderated interviews in 5 minutes. Conduct 20–30 minute conversations using structured laddering to uncover how attributes map to emotional benefits to core values. Run 200+ interviews in 24 hours.
Packaging Design & Claims Validation
Test old and new packaging through the same lens: emotional perceptions, functional understanding, and brand equity impact. Segment insights by shopper type and purchase frequency.
Consumer Segmentation & Shopper Insights
Run segmentation studies across your customer base, non-buyers, and competitive brand loyalists. The Intelligence Hub surfaces patterns to build true consumer personas tied to real language and motivations.
Innovation Portfolio Triage & Prioritization
Run lightweight concept screening across target consumers. Use open-ended follow-up questions to surface unmet needs and motivation gaps. Analyze motivation maps for each concept.
Regional Variation & Market Expansion
Run parallel studies across regions in 80+ languages with the same research design. Compare motivation hierarchies, perception of your brand vs. competitors, and unmet needs by region.
Competitive Switching Analysis
Interview brand switchers who left your category and recent converts from competing brands. Ladder through trigger events, perception gaps, and functional trade-offs that drove the decision. Segment by channel, occasion, and demographic to pinpoint where you're most vulnerable.
Why researchers choose User Intuition
User Intuition is an AI-moderated interview platform that gives research teams and agencies the depth of a senior researcher at the scale of a survey, with vetted respondents, your own methodology and evidence you can trace to the verbatim. Quality is built in: a person vets every panelist by hand, every session is screened for fraud, and you pay only for interviews that pass.
Senior-researcher depth
The moderator ladders 5–7 levels deep by default, using Reynolds and Gutman's laddering method, so you hear the reasons behind the reasons.
Your methodology, run as written
Bring your discussion guide and frameworks. Required questions stay pinned in order, word for word if you need it, study rules keep the moderator inside your compliance lines, screeners and hard quotas fill every cell to plan, and you decide how far it probes.
Every finding traces to its source
Click any theme through to the verbatim, the transcript and the recording. Nothing in the deliverable you can’t defend.
Respondents you can stand behind
A 4M+ vetted panel across 58 countries: a person listens to every panelist's interviews before they're accepted, then every session is screened for AI-generated or coached answers and panelists are tracked across studies. Or bring your own: customer lists, your panel provider, or respondents straight from your survey.
Deliverables ready to present
Themes, verbatims and an editable presentation for every study, plus every transcript, recording and screener answer to export into your own tools. Put your own brand on them when you need to.
Survey scale, quality-only billing
200+ panel interviews in 24 hours, with no cap on parallel conversations. Each one is scored on length, depth and coverage, and you pay only for those that pass.
- Isolated workspaces
- Confidential stimulus
- Never used to train AI models
- GDPR & CCPA compliant
- SOC 2 Type II examination underway
- Security →
How Does User Intuition Compare to Syndicated Data, Consumer Panels, and Traditional Qual for CPG Research?
| Dimension | User Intuition | Syndicated Data (Nielsen / IRI) | Consumer Panels (Suzy / YouGov) | Traditional qualitative research (focus groups) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Depth of Insight | 20–30 min conversations probing 5–7 levels into emotional and identity-driven purchase motivations | Transaction-level data; shows what sold, not why consumers chose it | 10–15 min surveys; stated preferences without motivation depth | 60–90 min groups where group dynamics shape individual answers |
| Time to Insights | 24 hours from study launch to full report | Monthly or quarterly reporting cycles; weeks old by delivery | 1–2 weeks for fielding; 3–4 weeks with analysis | 6–12 weeks per project including recruitment, moderation, and synthesis |
| Cost per Study | From $150 (5 interviews at $30 each, using your own audience) | $50K–$200K+ annual subscription; no per-study flexibility | $3K–$10K per wave depending on audience and complexity | $15K–$75K per project including recruitment and facility |
| Category Switching Analysis | Direct consumer conversations revealing why shoppers switch between brands | Shows brand switching patterns but not the motivation drivers | Can ask about switching but limited to surface-level stated reasons | Small sample; too few conversations to compare segments or count how often a theme appears |
| Concept Validation | Test multiple concepts in parallel with motivation hierarchies showing why consumers prefer each | No concept testing capability; measures post-launch performance only | Monadic testing with top-2-box scores; no depth on why | Tests concepts, but group dynamics and small samples limit how far results travel |
| Consumer Language | Full verbatim transcripts — usable directly in creative briefs and claims development | Category codes and UPC data; no consumer voice | Brief open-text responses; limited emotional context | Transcripts available but shaped by group dynamics |
| Multilingual Research | 80+ languages with native AI moderation across markets simultaneously | Regional data available but no qualitative depth across markets | Multi-market panels available; depth limited by survey format | Requires bilingual moderators per market; months of coordination |
| Knowledge Retention | Searchable intelligence hub that compounds across every study, season, and category | Dashboard access during subscription; no cross-study synthesis | Wave-by-wave reports; no institutional memory system | Project decks filed away; each project starts from zero |
Hear the interviews. See the presentation.
Explore calls and a sample presentation from our 43-participant Walmart shopper study.
Grocery top-up, supercenter
“Basically, because we use those things all a lot We try to always have you know, certain things in the house at all times because we use them very frequently. So we don't like to run out of them.”
What was making you want those specific things right then? Beyond just being out? Was it about being able to make certain meals or something else?
Basically, because we use those things all a lot We try to always have you know, certain things in the house at all times because we use them very frequently. So we don't like to run out of them.
Phone replacement, unplanned and urgent
“It made me feel so safe so relieved, and it brightened my day.”
Sounds like you knew exactly what you want. A Google Pixel 6 Pro. What was it about that phone that made it the right choice for you, especially in that moment?
Yeah. Thank you. So the the the phone had a lot of features. I I heard friends were talking about this phone. So in terms of the camera setting, it can take pictures and refine them into good quality. It has its own internal scanner, like I don't need to download other apps to scan to do scans. And of course, it has high quality for recording, which has been helping me in my meetings. In the office. So it's really amazing, and I love festival the quality of the phone in terms of the camera, because the previous phone I had was a Samsung. And the quality was really frustrating. And it had it has a very good processor speed as well. It's very fast. It's very efficient, and I like it. I like it. I'm enjoying the features.
Sample presentation
Preview three slides, or download the full 15-slide presentation.
Bring your own sample
$30 per quality voice interview
Use our 4M+ vetted panel
$60 per quality voice interview
What researchers say
"We had a product taking off in market and a lot of theories about why, but no real way to pressure-test any of them quickly. The old playbook would've been a $20K+ qual study that takes two months and gives you a deck nobody reads past slide 15. User Intuition let us talk to over 100 consumers in a couple days and actually get to the real motivations — not just 'I like the flavor' but the layers underneath that. The other thing I didn't expect to value as much: our whole commercial team can now pull from the same pool of consumer conversations. Everyone's working from the same understanding instead of playing telephone with a research summary."
"What surprised me was the moderator. In one pack study people kept saying a concept felt "more premium," and instead of logging that and moving on it kept asking what premium meant to them, until it came out that they meant the front wasn't cluttered, they could find the ingredients, and it looked like something they'd actually put in their cart. I'd normally only get that from a good human moderator."
Common questions
Run your first CPG consumer interview this week
Choose how you want to get started. Launch a quick study in 5 minutes, talk with our team about your pipeline, or see what CPG insights look like inside the Intelligence Hub.
Launch a quick study in 5 minutes. Get 30 interviews in 24 hours. No credit card. No sales pitch.
Talk with our team about your next innovation pipeline review, brand perception strategy, or packaging validation.
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No contract · Transparent per-interview pricing · Results in 24 hours
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