The breakfast cereal category is a tricky beast, with packs needing to strike a careful balance between on the one hand, taste and on the other, health. Nestlé Cereal Partners approached us to research their Cheerios brand, concerned that the pack wasn’t getting this balance quite right.

Our pre-design research not only confirmed this hypothesis, but also revealed the emergent gap between consumers’ positive emotional engagement with the brand and their detachment from the overly functional and adult pack. A further exploration of taste and health provided the design team with the insights they needed to progress with confidence.

Consumer feedback on the next stage of design work was so positive that the selected route needed barely any executional tweaks prior to launch – quite a feat, and quite a verification of the value of good pre-design research.