# Research best practices

Product testing research, consumer insights, and innovation best practices from the Highlight team.

- [Mar 12, 2025](/content/blog/ai-market-research/index.html)  
  **Using AI for market research | Highlight**  
  You’re racing to gather timely consumer feedback to keep your product launch on track without costly delays, but the data is overwhelming. Perhaps you’ve got multiple product iterations, and the testing cycles are…  
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- [Feb 27, 2025](/content/blog/product-packaging/index.html)  
  **Product Packaging from Concept to Shelf**  
  Packaging is to people perusing department store shelves what your personality is to networking event attendees: a “make-or-break” first impression. Just as you might agonize over how you came across to someone you just…  
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- [Feb 27, 2025](/content/blog/concept-testing-guide/index.html)  
  **How Concept Testing Sets Up Your Product for Success**  
  If your customers are joining together in a chorus of “What is this $#!& that nobody asked for!?” — you know you’ve got a problem.  
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- [Feb 17, 2025](/content/blog/benchmarking-analysis/index.html)  
  **Product Benchmarking: Why Real-World Testing Matters**  
  Research for product development is a funny thing. The metrics that look great in your marketing meetings may not tell the story of how your product actually performs in consumers' homes. So while your team is bringing…  
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- [Feb 12, 2025](/content/blog/using-data-insights-to-innovate-products/index.html)  
  **Leveraging Your Results to Build Better Products**  
  Congratulations! You've completed your project on Highlight - and now you're onto the fun part - the Insights experience in the platform. On more longstanding, built-out, or enterprise teams, you may have a turnkey,…  
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- [Jan 23, 2025](/content/blog/8-takeaways-from-texworld-2025-for-apparel-brands/index.html)  
  **What Apparel Brands Can Learn from Texworld 2025**  
  Highlight had the pleasure of attending Texworld NYC , the leading textile event connecting global textile manufacturers, fabric sourcing companies, and sustainable fabric suppliers with buyers from across the U.S.…  
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- [Jan 17, 2025](/content/blog/expect-more-pay-less-slogan-effectiveness/index.html)  
  **How "Expect More, Pay Less" Transformed Shopper Expectations**  
  Consumers today expect value and quality. To win on shelf, retailers need to deliver on that promise. Before Target was a household name, they were one Midwestern company’s ambition to become a discount store chain that…  
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- [Jan 7, 2025](/content/blog/in-home-pet-food-testing/index.html)  
  **In-home pet food testing: insights to improve your product**  
  Testing pet food is about way more than checking if you can claim your product is "vet recommended" or meets basic nutrition standards. Because there's testing in labs, with white coats and clean environments, and…  
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- [Jan 7, 2025](/content/blog/pet-food-packaging-best-practices/index.html)  
  **Boost sales with these pet food packaging trends**  
  Pets are becoming more and more like family. For many Millennials, they’re essentially furry (or feathery) children, with the added benefit that you can, in good conscience, post their funniest and most embarrassing…  
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- [Jan 7, 2025](/content/blog/confidence-level-vs-confidence-interval/index.html)  
  **Confidence interval vs confidence level — Highlight**  
  How accurate is your sampling method? How well do the results represent the population at large?  
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- [Jan 3, 2025](/content/blog/2025-cpg-industry-trends/index.html)  
  **The 2025 Trends that Will Shape the CPG Industry**  
  With 2024 in the rearview mirror, we’re looking down the road ahead. 2025 promises to be a year of big changes, but we couldn’t help but wonder: What are the trends that will fuel those changes?  
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- [Dec 20, 2024](/content/blog/focus-group-disadvantages/index.html)  
  **Top 8 Disadvantages of Focus Groups for Product Testing**  
  Focus groups have long been a go-to methodology for market research. However, the disadvantages of focus groups are significant enough that many brands are rethinking whether they're worth it at all.  
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