For many CPG teams, signs of brand stagnation aren’t always dramatic – but they’re hard to ignore. Sales growth might slow over multiple quarters. Promotion-driven spikes no longer create sustained lifts. Product reviews feel lukewarm or repetitive. There's a shared internal sense of, We’re doing all the right things, but we’re not moving forward.

Brand stagnation isn’t always about poor execution. In fact, teams may be working harder than ever. But when results flatten despite the effort, it’s often a signal that something fundamental has shifted – in the market, in consumer expectations, or in how well your product is meeting modern needs.

Common symptoms of brand stagnation include:

• Plateauing or declining sales despite increased marketing dollars
• Low consumer engagement or lack of buzz on social and retail platforms
• Limited differentiation in a crowded category
• Innovation efforts not landing or lacking direction

In crowded CPG categories, slight shifts in consumer preferences can result in major implications for growth. Changing lifestyles, emerging values, or new occasions of use could all influence what people expect from a product — without necessarily showing up in standard reports or dashboards. What’s often missing is a deep, qualitative look at evolving customer needs and how well the brand continues to serve them.

This is where consumer insights for brand growth become essential. Analytical tools like market trends and sales data are valuable, but they don’t always explain the "why" behind customer behaviors. To truly understand why CPG brands stop growing, leadership needs to dig deeper into the context of consumer lives – their routines, frustrations, decision-making, and unmet needs.

Many brands get stuck by trying to optimize something that actually needs to evolve: the core problem customers expect the brand to solve. That’s why understanding the "job" your product is hired to do – the real reason consumers reach for it – is a powerful way to reset your product development and marketing strategy around relevance today, not yesterday.

The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework is a customer-centric approach that helps brands understand what motivates consumers to choose, use, or abandon a product. Instead of focusing on product features or demographics, JTBD zeros in on the job – the real-life goal or problem a customer is trying to solve when they make a purchase.

Think of it this way: people don’t buy toothpaste just for its taste or packaging. They “hire” it to do a job – maybe to feel fresh before a big meeting, combat coffee stains, or provide a trusted routine after a long day. That job sits at the root of repeat purchases, brand loyalty, and switching behavior.

Why does this matter for CPG strategy?

Because when a product stops growing, it often means your customers’ needs have changed – or someone else is doing the job better. JTBD gives you a framework to identify new opportunities for innovation, positioning, or improvement by re-focusing the lens on what consumers truly want to accomplish.

Through structured market research, such as ethnographies, in-depth interviews, or custom surveys, CPG brands can uncover hidden motivations behind purchase behaviors. These nuanced consumer insights bring clarity to questions like:

• Is our product still solving the right problem?
• Are emerging competitors doing the same job more effectively?
• Are there adjacent jobs we’ve overlooked?
• How has the context around our product shifted?

Imagine a fictional brand that sells bottled smoothies. Sales have dropped, but taste tests and ad campaigns keep landing well. A JTBD study reveals that consumers originally hired the smoothie for a convenient, on-the-go health boost. But increasingly, customers are choosing alternatives that also include added nutrients or meal-replacement benefits. The job hasn’t disappeared – it’s evolved. This insight opens the door to product innovation, better brand messaging, or even a new SKU that solves this fuller job.

By applying the Jobs To Be Done lens, CPG teams gain a clearer view of how their product fits into the lives of their consumers – and how that fit can be improved. It’s not about guessing what the market wants; it’s about discovering what your customers are already trying to do, and designing to help them do it better.

For business leaders, marketing teams, and innovation strategists, using JTBD can reconnect your brand to the realities of your customers and position it for renewed relevance and brand growth. It takes the guesswork out of rebranding a CPG product and replaces it with insight-driven action.

When a CPG brand experiences stagnation, it's easy to assume the problem lies in product quality, price point, or declining category interest. But more often, the real issue is that consumers' needs have changed – and the brand hasn't kept up. This is where the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework becomes a powerful lens.

JTBD shifts the focus from demographics and usage habits to the deeper motivation behind why people buy. Instead of asking, “Who is our customer?” JTBD prompts teams to ask, “What job is our product being hired to do in their life?” That small shift opens the door to far more meaningful insights.

Revealing Hidden Motivations Through JTBD Research

Many CPG products serve both functional and emotional purposes. For example, someone buying a ready-made smoothie isn’t just looking for nutrition – they may be hiring it for the job of reducing mental friction during a hectic morning routine or feeling like they’re making a healthy choice effortlessly.

By applying JTBD within consumer insights research, brands can uncover these multi-layered reasons that traditional market research might miss. A few common “jobs” behind everyday purchases include:

• Saving time or simplifying routines
• Boosting emotional well-being or self-image
• Supporting a lifestyle identity (e.g., health-conscious, family-focused)
• Creating small moments of reward or indulgence

When these jobs go unrecognized, CPG products can lose relevance – even if sales data stays flat for a while. JTBD helps brands identify the emotional and situational forces driving (or stalling) product usage, leading to richer, more actionable findings.

Going Beyond Product Features

The gold of JTBD isn't in identifying new flavors or packaging tweaks – it’s in uncovering under-served needs that can inspire more meaningful product innovation or repositioning. For example, a fictional CPG breakfast bar brand learned through JTBD-style interviews that customers weren’t actually craving new flavors; they wanted confidence that the bar would stave off hunger until lunch. That unmet need redirected product development toward satiety and clear benefits rather than novelty.

Ultimately, seeing your product through the lens of the job it performs – not just its category function – allows for deeper empathy and sharper business decisions. It lays the emotional groundwork for stronger loyalty and differentiation in increasingly cluttered markets.

When a once-successful CPG product struggles to gain traction, it’s tempting to throw promotions at the problem or expand the SKU line. But these tactics can miss the root issue: the product may no longer be effectively solving the job your consumers need done. JTBD thinking offers a more strategic route to reigniting brand growth with confidence and clarity.

Turning Insights Into Opportunity

Once you've identified the functional and emotional jobs your product is (or should be) doing, it becomes much easier to spot whitespace and unmet needs. These discoveries fuel product innovation, brand storytelling, and even new channel strategies.

For example, if JTBD research reveals that busy parents “hire” your snack product to reduce guilt around screen time by offering a small act of care, this opens opportunities to reposition the product with messaging around reassurance and connection – not just convenience.

Repositioning Rather Than Reinventing

JTBD doesn’t always require creating a new product from scratch. Sometimes, it simply reframes what you already offer. In many CPG cases, applying consumer insights strategically means:

• Shifting communication to better reflect the real job the product serves
• Highlighting value that aligns with emotional or functional needs
• Reassessing packaging and placement for greater alignment with usage context

Even small repositioning efforts – like changing how a product is marketed on shelf or on social media – can spark renewed consumer relevance if they are grounded in a true understanding of their underlying job.

Connecting the Dots: Research to Action

CPG brands that successfully use JTBD to break out of stagnation don’t just conduct research – they organize around it. This means bringing cross-functional teams together (marketing, R&D, product, even operations) to align on shared consumer jobs insight and explore opportunities through joint brainstorming and agile testing. SIVO’s growth frameworks help brands do exactly that by translating market research into actionable pathways for innovation and brand growth.

By embedding JTBD thinking into your broader CPG brand strategy, you not only fuel smarter product development – you unlock a cultural shift toward consumer empathy and long-term relevance. That's fuel for renewed growth at both the product and portfolio level.

Knowing when to invest in Jobs To Be Done research is just as important as knowing how to use it. JTBD is particularly valuable at key moments when your brand strategy needs clarity, reinvention, or deeper direction from your customers' perspective.

Signs Your Product Isn't Meeting Customer Needs

Here are a few common scenarios that signal JTBD research can provide meaningful value:

• Sales are flat or declining – but you’re not sure why, and traditional category data isn’t revealing root causes.
• Customers are defecting to competitors who seem to “get” them better – even if your product features are comparable.
• Your brand or product feels outdated or disconnected in a changing market.
• Internal teams have different ideas of what problem the product solves – making it hard to unify marketing or innovation direction.

In these situations, JTBD research helps cut through assumptions and surfaces valuable consumer insights for brand growth. It reframes problems not just in terms of what's gone wrong, but what opportunities are waiting to be discovered.

JTBD as a Strategic Input, Not a Final Answer

JTBD doesn’t replace other forms of market research or product development methods – it complements them by anchoring strategy in human motivation. Whether you're exploring new positioning, considering a relaunch, or launching into new formats or channels, understanding customer jobs offers guardrails that keep decisions grounded in actual demand.

Great Fit for CPG Brand Strategy Decisions

Some practical use cases where applying a JTBD framework can move the needle:

- Early-stage product innovation linked to unmet consumer needs
- Revitalizing legacy products for modern relevance
- Rebranding or repositioning efforts requiring fresh consumer connection
- Crafting marketing strategy that taps into emotional drivers, not just features

Think of JTBD as a spotlight – it illuminates the gap between what you’re offering and what customers are actually trying to accomplish. That insight helps CPG brands not only serve their audience better, but create real competitive advantage in saturated or mature markets.