When conducting empathy treks in the CPG industry, participant recruitment plays a critical role in the quality and impact of your qualitative research. While all market research depends on finding the right voices, empathy treks are especially reliant on this factor because they are built around in-person, real-life interactions. These aren’t theoretical exercises – they are direct observations of how people interact with products in natural environments.

Unlike surveys or online interviews, where responses are filtered through memory or opinion, empathy treks unfold in real time. They help uncover unspoken needs, emotional connections, workarounds, and habits. But these powerful insights only surface when you're engaging with the right participants – people who actually live the experiences you're aiming to understand.

Real People. Real Contexts. Real Behaviors.

Choosing the right participants allows you to:

• Witness authentic product usage in context – such as seeing how a snack fits into a family’s after-school routine, or how a household stores cleaning products under the sink.
• Identify user pain points or unmet needs that may not be vocalized in a traditional research setting.
• Explore emotional or cultural associations tied to product use that influence purchase decisions.
• Build empathy within your team by seeing the human side of your customer’s journey in real life.

Not all CPG users experience products in the same way. For example, a busy parent shopping for convenience differs greatly from an eco-conscious young adult focused on packaging sustainability. Both could be ideal candidates, depending on your research goals. The key is selecting participants who can shed light on the research question, rather than defaulting to generic demographic quotas.

Connecting People to Purpose

Strong participant selection ensures your CPG empathy trek delivers on more than just observation – it sparks ideas, inspires product development, and informs brand positioning. It makes qualitative research tangible for stakeholders, helping teams move beyond guesswork. That's why at firms like SIVO Insights, participant recruitment is treated as a strategic step, not a checkbox. Participant selection in market research isn't just about filling quotas – it's about choosing people who represent relevant behaviors, challenges, and aspirations tied to your brand and category.

In short: get the recruitment right, and the insights will follow. It’s the foundation for a successful empathy trek and a smarter, more human understanding of the consumer journey.

Historically, participant recruitment for market research often focused heavily on demographics like age, gender, income level, or location. While these basic filters still play a role, they're no longer sufficient on their own – especially for qualitative research like empathy treks in the CPG space. To understand user behavior and uncover meaningful consumer insights, we need to move past 'who they are' and instead explore 'how they live' and 'how they use'. This shift makes recruiting qualitative research participants more purposeful and far more insightful.

Behavior Over Background

In empathy treks, we’re not trying to fill a checklist – we’re trying to illuminate the consumer journey from within. That means choosing participants based on real-world product interaction and relevance. Here are a few factors that matter more than just demographics:

• Product Usage Patterns: How often someone uses your product (daily, occasional, seasonal) can dramatically change the experience you observe and the insights you gain.
• Context of Use: A cleaning product used by someone caring for pets vs. someone with allergies will be used differently – and will evoke different needs.
• Emotional Role of the Product: Some consumers have deep emotional connections to products – like a certain coffee brand tied to morning rituals – which isn’t visible in demographic data.
• Workarounds & Hacks: Participants who modify or repurpose products can reveal innovation opportunities that might otherwise be missed.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Suppose you're researching a line of packaged snacks. Instead of simply recruiting adults aged 25–45, look for parents packing lunches, commuters snacking on-the-go, or health-conscious individuals comparing labels at the store. These usage-based profiles offer richer insights into motivations, frustrations, and opportunities for your brand.

In another scenario, if you're launching a new laundry detergent, the goal shouldn't be to find people who do laundry – it’s to find people with different roles in the laundry process: the busy caregiver, the eco-friendly shopper, or the budget-conscious decision maker. Each has specific pain points and values that go beyond demographic traits.

Including Diverse Contexts for Stronger Insights

One of the best practices for empathy trek recruiting is purposeful diversity. This means ensuring a range of life experiences, stages, household types, and routines are represented. Diverse contexts create a wider lens, enabling brands to see unexpected challenges and emerging needs.

Ultimately, recruiting participants based on usage behavior helps deliver insights that are practical, emotional, and actionable – giving brand teams more depth to work with. At SIVO Insights, we regularly guide clients through this type of smart, behavior-based market research recruitment strategy – showing that when you go beyond demographics, the insights get much more powerful.

One of the most powerful ways to uncover actionable CPG consumer insights is to look beyond who consumers are, and explore how they use products in their daily lives. When planning a CPG empathy trek, it's essential to recognize that two consumers from the same demographic group can engage with your product in completely different ways depending on their routines, lifestyle, and needs.

Start by asking: How does this product show up in their life?

Understanding product usage patterns helps you identify whether someone is a habitual user, an occasional dabbler, or a brand switcher. This usage frequency can uncover unmet needs, frustrations, or decision-making moments that are critical for CPG innovation and marketing strategy.

Key product usage considerations include:

• Frequency of use – Is the product part of their daily routine or used for special occasions only?
• Role in their routine – Is it a convenience item, a comfort ritual, or a health essential?
• Time of day – Morning, lunch, on-the-go, or evening wind-down use?
• Emotional drivers – Are they using the product for indulgence, performance, or well-being?

For example, consider two consumers who both use snack bars. One relies on them as a quick breakfast during a hectic commute, while another treats them as a mindful mid-afternoon treat. Same item, very different roles – and therefore, different expectations and behaviors.

When recruiting for qualitative research studies like empathy treks, prioritizing people based on these patterns – not just their age or income – gives you richer, more relevant perspectives on their consumer journey.

Incorporating these behavioral lenses into your participant recruitment process helps you find consumers whose interaction with the product will reveal more than what a typical survey might capture. This aligns with effective CPG market research recruitment strategies that seek nuance and depth over broad generalizations.

Ultimately, mapping out product usage behaviors leads to stronger, more focused recruiting. It ensures your empathy trek captures the true voice of the customer – through the lens of real-life choices and lived experiences.

In CPG research, context is everything. Even when a product performs the same function – like cleaning, eating, or skincare – the way it's sourced, stored, used, and perceived can vary widely based on environment. That's why recruiting participants from diverse contexts is essential for a high-impact empathy trek.

What does “context” mean in this setting?

Context refers to the setting in which a product is bought or used. It encompasses physical spaces, cultural influences, social surroundings, and economic realities. In recruiting, this goes hand-in-hand with participant selection for market research that reflects real-world experiences.

For example, how a parent in a suburban home shops for toddler snacks may differ greatly from how a young professional in a city apartment approaches the same category. Their pantry space, nearby stores, and child routines all affect the experience – and the insights you’ll uncover.

Adding context diversity helps your team:

• Understand emotional, physical, and practical product interactions across lifestyles
• Identify different points of friction, delight, or need that spark innovation
• See how product expectations shift between environments – from on-the-go to at-home to shared use
• Avoid bias from a single type of consumer experience

Too often, CPG fieldwork leans heavily on convenience samples or narrow user types, unintentionally excluding important perspectives. Building context variety into your recruitment tips ensures you capture insights that are inclusive, layered, and broadly relevant to your brand’s growth goals.

Especially in CPG consumer insights research methods like empathy treks, standing in your consumer’s shoes is not just about who they are, but where they are. Different environments often spark unique coping mechanisms, product hacks, or creative solutions – gold mines for new product development and messaging.

Investing in context diversity isn’t about trying to cover every possibility. It’s about intentionally selecting a range of settings where the product plays a role – giving your team a fuller, more human picture of how consumers live with your brand.

The success of any empathy trek or CPG field immersion begins with who you bring along for the journey. Choosing the right individuals to participate ensures your brand team experiences authentic, insightful, and actionable moments that can transform strategy.

So how do you recruit high-impact participants?

Here are practical recruitment tips for selecting standout participants for field-based qualitative research:

1. Define behavioral anchors first

Instead of just screening for “users,” ask: how often do they use the product, when, and why? Build your screener around these real-life behaviors rather than surface attributes like income or age. This approach supports recruiting participants based on usage behavior.

2. Prioritize articulate storytellers

While not every participant needs to be a polished speaker, those who can clearly describe their routines, frustrations, and choices add rich texture to the data. Ask a few open-ended questions during screening to test their communication style and thoughtfulness.

3. Mix loyalists and switchers

Don’t just seek loyal or positive users. Including category switchers, lapsed users, or partial-category buyers broadens your view and helps identify conversion or churn triggers. These voices often highlight opportunities for brand disruption.

4. Ensure logistical readiness

Field immersions require participants to host observers in their homes, share openly, or complete pre-/post-work. Look for people who are enthusiastic, responsive, and comfortable with the process – these individuals yield better in-context experiences.

5. Use real-world screeners

Instead of hypothetical questions, include prompts like: “Show us your current stash” or “Describe your last purchase.” This not only confirms product use, but sets the tone for the natural, story-based tone of the trek.

Ultimately, successful participant recruitment for an empathy trek is about balancing structure with curiosity. You want users who reflect real habits and context – and who are ready to bring your team into their world. That’s where the magic of insight lives.

By applying these best practices in your next CPG research effort, you’ll capture far more than soundbites – you’ll uncover the hidden influencers of user behavior that fuel real brand growth.