Most CPG teams still treat in-store demos as a cost of doing business:book the table, hand out the samples, hope the sales lift justifies the spend. But when you design an activation as a live research lab , you don’t just move cases for a weekend you come away with the kind of insight that can sharpen your targeting, your messaging and your next retailer pitch. That’s exactly what happened with Taste of Nature  and their recent activation with Sprouts  in the U.S. The brief:

If you’re Googling “How much does consumer research cost?”  you’re probably not trying to win a trivia night. You’re likely: Planning a new product Considering a rebrand or new marketing strategy Under pressure to get serious about DEI / inclusion Or trying to fix something that clearly isn’t working And now you’re wondering: “Is this a $5,000 exercise, a $50,000 project, or the kind of thing my board will choke on?” Here’s my straight answer, framed around 10 questions  I wa

If you’ve ever worked on something that permanently upgraded your thinking, you’ll understand this story. Every once in a while, I look back at some of the critical work that really shaped the Inclusion Marketing Framework our team at TerraNova360 uses.   I wanted to share one of the more challenging ones today. One of the most formative was a massive data-modelling, quantitative insight, and dealer-level ethnographic study I led for the Toronto Area Ford Dealers Association.