The physical partner behind consumer research.
You design the study, recruit, field, and analyze. When the method needs a production-real pack in a real hand, we make it: in-home use tests, at-shelf and in-context studies, central-location and sensory work. Blinded, variant-correct, kitted, and shipped to your field dates.
In most consumer research, the pack is part of the stimulus. When the thing in a respondent's hands doesn't look and feel production-real, the study measures a reaction to the wrong object. Data quality starts with the physical stimulus you put in front of people, and that is what we make all day.
Where we plug in
Every method that needs a real pack in a real hand.
In-home use tests
Production-real product and packaging, blinded and variant-correct, kitted per household and shipped to homes on your field dates.
In-context and at-shelf tests
The test pack made production-real so it reads right among real competitors on a real or simulated shelf. We can build the competitive comps too, so the whole set stays consistent.
Central-location and sensory
Batches of production-matched stimuli at throughput quantity, blinded and randomized, shipped to your facilities for the day the sessions start.
Concept and pack tests
Multiple design variants at production fidelity, so respondents judge the object instead of a render. Monadic, sequential, or choice.
Qualitative and interviews
Small runs of real packs to put in hands during focus groups, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, fast, when a mockup would flatten the conversation.
Sampling and seeding
Packaged product before the full run exists, for trial, unboxing, and earned-media studies.
The seam we fill
What we take off your plate.
Stimulus production
Production-real comps and samples of packs that don't exist yet, matched to the finish, substrate, and color the real product will carry. The stimulus your test deserves, not a mockup that reads as a mockup.
Blinding and variant control
Blinded repack, variant-correct labeling, and randomization as the design requires. Single-BOM change control keeps every cell repeatable and on the same version of the truth.
Kit assembly
Per-household kits with usage materials, built to your kit pattern, with a photo of record for each pattern so you can verify what every respondent received.
Fulfillment to field dates
Shipped in waves or all at once, on time and in full, so fielding starts when the screener says it starts and no cell goes into the field late.
Fidelity is the brief
Matched to the finish the real product will carry.
Foil, soft-touch, matte, spot UV, metallics, textured substrates. A respondent judges the pack in hand, so the finish has to be right, not approximated. We match it on the stimuli we produce, and when a study needs a specialty finish at full production scale we bring in the right production resources to match it. Every cell of the study gets the same execution.
Service levels, not estimates
Numbers your project timeline can use.
Your client stays your client.
We don't run research, design studies, or field panels, and we never sit between you and your client. White-label is standard: your name on the study, our work inside the box. Market research firms already run national programs for CPG brands on this system, from in-home use tests to at-shelf studies.
How it starts
Send the design, get a plan.
The program behind this page
This runs on 3D Color LaunchPad.
Print, QA, kitting, and fulfillment in one accountable flow. The same system also powers sell-in kits, line-review samples, and pilots.
3D Color
The physical proof behind the studies that brands act on.
Send the test design and the field dates. You'll get back feasibility, a confirmed timeline, and one PO covering comp production, kitting, and fulfillment.
Let's talk about your study →76,000 comps a year · 250+ brands · 60+ billion-dollar brands
Leah Mattingly · leah.mattingly@3dcolor.com