The short version
In-context researcher Luke Cahill has spent more than 1,000 days watching real shoppers decide. His core argument: most products fail in translation, not in concept, because the decision gets made at the speed of shopping. To win at shelf, a product has to be seen, understood, wanted, and wanted again. Brands lose when they reach past the permission shoppers grant them or fight the category norms that do the heavy lifting.
And as AI makes shallow research effortless and nearly free, the value of genuine in-context insight, built on intuition from the real world, only goes up. The most practical move is the simplest one: get out of the building and stand in your category.
What is in-context research?
Studying real shoppers, in the right mindset, in a real store, often with realistic prototypes, to see how people actually behave instead of what they say they will. Luke Cahill argues it reveals the last 10 percent of truth that surveys and dashboards miss.
What does it take to win at shelf?
A product has to be seen, understood, wanted, and wanted again. Most failure happens in translation at the speed of shopping, not in the idea, so the package has to make a shopper understand and want the product in seconds, then deliver on the expectation it set.
Is AI replacing shopper and packaging research?
It is replacing the shallow, commodity end of it. AI makes mediocre research effortless and nearly free, which raises the value of genuine in-context insight built on real-world intuition. The deciding moment is still physical: a real shopper holding the pack at the shelf.
Bob Jennings is the CEO of 3D Color, where comps, prototypes, and sales samples are 100% of the business. Pack Futures is 3D Color’s ongoing conversation with the leaders shaping the future of packaging and design.