Consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands operate in cluttered, fast-moving markets where product launches can rise or fall based on customer relevance. With limited time and budget, teams need clarity on where to focus their innovation and messaging. That’s why it’s essential to prioritize high-value Jobs to Be Done – those that directly influence purchase decisions and brand loyalty.

JTBD isn’t just about listing what consumers want; it’s about understanding what they’re trying to achieve and which of those goals truly matter to them. In other words, not every 'job' a customer mentions is worth chasing. Some may be interesting or even aspirational, but only jobs that solve meaningful pain points or unmet needs drive real consumer behavior in the aisle or online cart.

What Makes a Job 'High-Value'?

A high-value job is one that’s significantly important to the consumer, frequently experienced, and poorly addressed by current market offerings. These jobs lead to frustration, switching behavior, or workaround solutions – all signs that customers are willing to invest in better answers.

• Importance: Does the job help the customer achieve something they deeply care about?
• Frequency: Is the job encountered regularly enough to justify a solution?
• Underserved: Are current products failing to fully meet the need?

By filtering through this lens, you avoid the trap of investing in 'interesting but irrelevant' ideas and instead home in on opportunities with real growth potential.

Examples of High vs. Low-Value Jobs in CPG

Consider two shoppers choosing a laundry detergent:

Low-value job: "Make laundry smell nice." While common, this job is often well met across brands and doesn’t typically drive brand switching.

High-value job: "Ensure my child’s sensitive skin won’t react to the detergent." This job carries more emotional and functional weight, likely leading to deliberate product choice and higher brand stickiness.

Understanding how to identify jobs to be done in CPG is especially useful when considering new product development, messaging strategy, or adjusting your price/value offering. It helps align your efforts with real-world CPG insights – not just trends or assumptions.

At SIVO Insights, we often see how jobs that blend emotional importance with unmet functional or contextual needs become the most actionable. Whether it’s optimizing packaging, flavor profiles, or portion sizing, identifying high-value jobs provides a roadmap for relevant product innovation backed by real consumer research.

One of the first steps in applying Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) within consumer research is understanding the different types of jobs that consumers are trying to accomplish. While all jobs reflect a goal or outcome, they don’t all stem from the same place. Most fall into three categories: functional, emotional, and contextual.

Functional Jobs: What Consumers Are Trying to Achieve

Functional jobs are the most straightforward. These are the tasks that consumers aim to complete or problems they want to solve. They are often observable and practical in nature.

Examples:

• Removing grass stains from clothes
• Keeping a snack fresh for school lunches
• Providing quick relief for a headache

In CPG spaces, understanding functional needs is essential, but focusing only on them may lead to parity products unless something is truly differentiated. Functional jobs are best uncovered through close observation and direct questioning of behavior during consumer research.

Emotional Jobs: How Consumers Want to Feel

Emotional jobs go deeper by answering: how do consumers want to feel when using or thinking about a product? Emotions can drive behavior more powerfully than logic, especially when they relate to self-image, confidence, or a sense of control.

Examples:

• Feeling like a good parent by choosing healthy snacks
• Feeling confident before a big presentation after using a grooming product
• Feeling comforted on a stressful day by a familiar treat

Emotional drivers often surface in conversations about brand affinity or user rituals. These feelings help explain why consumers remain loyal – or why a competitor might threaten that loyalty if they better satisfy the emotional job.

Contextual Jobs: When and Where Jobs Arise

Contextual jobs capture the time, place, and environment in which the job appears. Understanding these can help CPG teams develop more targeted solutions, from size and format to portability and communication strategy.

Examples:

• Needing an energy boost while commuting (vs. at home)
• Buying a beverage that won’t spill in a child’s backpack
• Choosing seasoning blends for quick weeknight dinners vs. weekend cooking

These contextual insights in consumer usage are especially valuable when refining product designs or distribution strategies. They help uncover hidden pain points in specific usage occasions that might otherwise be missed in standard surveys.

The interplay of all three – functional, emotional, and contextual – creates a full picture of user behavior. For JTBD for consumer packaged goods brands to be truly actionable, decision-makers need to recognize how these needs overlap and prioritize accordingly.

At SIVO, we often use layered JTBD analysis during both qualitative interviews and quantitative validations to explore not just what people say they want, but also what they silently expect based on situation and emotion. This is where true market research CPG meets empathy, helping teams build smarter strategies rooted in how real people live and choose.

One of the most valuable outcomes of applying the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework in consumer packaged goods (CPG) is uncovering jobs that directly influence purchase behavior. These are the "high-impact" jobs – ones that, when fulfilled, move consumers to actively choose a product or brand. Spotting them requires more than simply capturing what customers say they want. It means understanding the true motivations behind their actions.

Recognizing What Drives the Purchase Moment

High-impact JTBD are connected to key decision-making moments. These jobs often reflect a blend of functional needs (what the product must do), emotional drivers (how the consumer wants to feel), and contextual triggers (what is happening around them when the need arises).

Here’s an example: A busy parent choosing a ready-to-use baby food isn't just seeking nutrition. They’re addressing a job like “Help me feel confident I'm giving my child something healthy, even when I don’t have time to cook.” In this case, the emotional reassurance and context (being time-starved) weigh just as heavily as the product’s nutrition quality.

Clues That a Job Is Tied to Buying Behavior

Through consumer research and JTBD analysis, patterns start to emerge. Watch for these signals when trying to identify high-value jobs to be done:

• The job is mentioned repeatedly by different types of users in different settings
• Consumers make trade-offs to fulfill it (e.g., paying a premium for convenience)
• The job is linked to dissatisfaction with current solutions
• Fulfilling the job creates brand loyalty, repeat purchases, or positive word-of-mouth

From Jobs to Product Strategy

Jobs that consistently show up around purchase decisions indicate opportunities for CPG innovation. These can help shape everything from product formulation and packaging to messaging and placement strategies. When you elevate high-impact jobs within your team’s roadmap, you aren’t just making informed choices – you’re aligning with real human intent.

Identifying high-impact JTBD is about going beyond demographics and usage data. It’s about uncovering why people act, what they truly care about in the moment of choice, and how your brand can deliver in a meaningful way.

In the world of JTBD research, it’s easy to get distracted by what we call “nice to solve” jobs – needs that sound interesting, potentially useful, or even emotionally appealing, but don’t actually influence a consumer’s purchasing behavior in a meaningful way. While these jobs might make headlines or align with tangential trends, they often don’t justify investment unless connected to deeper, recurring consumer motivations.

Spotting Low-Value Jobs

A "nice to solve" job might come from well-intentioned user feedback or surface in initial interviews, but it lacks urgency. For example, a consumer might say they’d like a snack to include “fun packaging games” for kids. Interesting? Yes. Key to buying the product? Probably not. These jobs tend to be:

• Easily forgotten or abandoned in real-world usage
• Linked to short-lived trends or novelty
• Absent when asking follow-up questions like “What would you use instead?” or “What happens if this job isn’t solved?”

Focus on Core Motivators

Instead of chasing superficial ideas, look for customer needs that touch on what matters most: functionality, emotion, and context. This is where market research in CPG shines. By digging into repeated patterns through qualitative and quantitative methods, a clearer picture of core motivations comes into view – such as the desire for convenience, trust, control, comfort, or achievement.

An effective JTBD filtering approach asks:

Is the job tied to a moment of frustration, habit, or decision trade-off? If yes, it’s likely core.

Does solving this job impact trial, repeat use, or brand trust? If not, re-check its priority.

Validating Value Through Consumer Insight

At SIVO, we often help clients move from a long list of potential jobs to a short list of high-value jobs to be done by combining consumer interviews, in-context usage studies, and behavioral data. This mix provides clarity around which needs are real drivers of behavior – and which are just noise.

Filtering out "nice to solve" distractions ensures your CPG brand strategy is grounded in reality, not guesswork.

Whether you're new to the Jobs to Be Done methodology or looking to refine your existing approach, it helps to have a clear roadmap. JTBD doesn’t require complicated models – the focus should always be on understanding people through their context, motivations, and behavior. Here’s how to surface high-value jobs that can lead to meaningful brand growth in the CPG category.

1. Start with Usage Contexts

High-impact JTBD emerge when you study the when, where, and how of product use. Map the occasions in which consumers interact with your category. For example, drinking coffee isn’t one job – drinking coffee while commuting is different from having a cup to unwind during a night in. Even subtle context shifts can reveal distinct JTBD.

2. Conduct Insight-Led Interviews

Talk directly to consumers. Go beyond what they think about your product and dig into their routines, obstacles, and emotions. Use follow-ups like: “What happened right before that?” or “What were you hoping to feel?” to uncover emotional drivers and functional needs.

3. Build Job Statements

Structure jobs with clarity: “Help me [action], so I can [desired outcome], when [context].” This format captures all relevant dimensions – and it becomes a practical tool for aligning teams across messaging, R&D, packaging, and placement strategies.

4. Prioritize Based on Impact and Frequency

Not all jobs are equal. Conduct JTBD analysis to rank them by how often they occur, how strongly they influence choice, and how poorly they are currently being met. Jobs that check all three boxes become your strategic focus areas.

5. Keep Testing with Real Consumer Behavior

Validate jobs through observation and in-market testing. Prototype solutions and measure feedback. Embed behavioral metrics into your CPG insights process to stay close to actual usage – a more accurate predictor of need than opinion alone.

When thoughtfully applied, JTBD helps your brand stop reacting and start anticipating. And it shifts innovation away from internal assumptions, toward meaningful unmet consumer needs that drive loyalty and growth.