Consumers on social media were loud and clear about their thoughts on Grillo’s Pickles. They loved the pickles, but hated the packaging.
Pickle juice leaked or spilled in the refrigerator, and consumers reported hurt fingers or broken nails when opening the lid, according to Eddie Andre, vice president of branding at Grillo’s Pickles. “We knew the jar was our biggest consumer pain point,” Andre said in an email.
Grillo’s took the years of consumer feedback to heart and worked with its packaging partner, Berry Global, to develop a solution. It settled on a lid change, switching from a model that lifts up to a continuous thread closure design, which debuted this spring and is in the process of rolling out to store shelves.
“Now you can twist off the lid with no spills or sore fingers,” Andre said.
It’s not just Grillo’s Pickles paying attention to the social media dialogue. As people spend more time on social media, other brands are evolving beyond more traditional feedback tools like focus groups to use social listening to collect and analyze consumer feedback and monitor criticism. In some cases, that leads to changes in their products or packaging.
“There's really a good opportunity to meet consumer needs,” said Wendy Scherer, managing partner of the Social Studies Group, an organization focused on social media research.
Listening to consumers
Social media platforms are nearly impossible to ignore and offer a gold mine of information for consumer-facing brands to understand how their products and packaging are performing.
The use of social listening ticked up during the pandemic, when people were purchasing more products online, said Jenifer Golden, senior director of partnerships and innovation at Open Influence, a marketing agency working with content creators. Today, it’s estimated that more than 62% of the global population uses social media, with average daily use exceeding two hours.
Before social media, brands often relied on focus groups for feedback, Scherer said. Focus groups can be costly and time intensive, and they typically involve a marketer asking a question, and participants thinking through their answers.
Conversely, “If they just put it out there on social media, it's unsolicited,” Scherer said. “I feel like it's more true.”
In today’s age, social media users often look to content creators for reviews, because “they know they're going to get the honest truth,” about a product or its packaging — whether that’s positive or negative, Golden said.
There are some disadvantages to brands relying on social listening, though. Gathering feedback through social media can skew data and insights toward demographics that are more active on the platforms, potentially excluding older generations who may have different packaging needs, such as the ability to read text on a package without having to scan a QR code for more info. “Ease of use is really key,” Scherer said.
Additionally, comments could come from a vocal minority, false accounts or even be bot-generated, resulting in brands needing to filter through the noise before making decisions. “You want to make sure that you're making changes based on what real consumers care about,” Scherer said.
Social media giants such as Meta, which owns platforms Facebook and Instagram, have increased security measures, making it tougher for algorithms to detect keywords or the conversation around a brand, Scherer noted. At the same time, artificial intelligence tools are more sophisticated, and brands can create boolean searches with their brand name and keywords related to packaging and the characteristics they want to evoke.
Grillo’s receives feedback about its product and packaging through a variety of avenues. Andre said most times, consumers send an email or a direct message to Grillo’s Instagram account.
Social media interaction is common in the food and beverage industries. Danone, parent company of yogurt brands Dannon and Activia, offered an earlier example. Back in 2018, it reported using social listening to get input on its packaging from consumers in Spain who wanted a different way to close a yogurt with a pouch-type container. They called for multi-pack options instead of single cups.
The packaging of products, in particular, has gained a lot of attention on social media. “Unboxing” videos, in which consumers record themselves opening a package, first started to become more common in 2006, according to Smithers. Today, nearly 6 million posts on Instagram use the #unboxing hashtag.
Some unboxing videos celebrate the aesthetic of a product’s packaging when it arrives, which provides an opportunity for brands to work with those content creators, Golden said. The brand could send the creator additional products, or even incorporate the creator’s feedback into the packaging.
But some unboxing videos criticize brands for wasted space in a box or excessive use of plastic. As consumers become more conscious of sustainability, hashtags and channels have popped up where consumers create reels or TikToks of excess packaging in their online orders or at a store.
Inspiring change
Once brands gather feedback, implementing a change is another story. Brands often go to their suppliers to share what they are thinking and inquire about what’s possible. With potential changes to artwork and materials, “it's a huge undertaking,” Scherer said.
If a brand decides to overhaul its packaging, it may want to publicize the new design. Brands can do this via their own social media accounts or work with content creators. If an influencer initially criticized a product’s packaging on social media, the brand could send that person the updated design, in hopes they’ll post a video about the new and improved packaging.
“Hopefully, at that point, they do speak well and share that this brand was listening and cares about their consumers,” Golden said.
At Grillo’s, the pickle company “tried many times to figure out a solution that could work without jeopardizing our product or production,” Andre said.
The brand had “extensive conversations and many iterations” of the packaging and experienced some challenges finding the right jar for its product. The packaging needed to maintain the taste, freshness and crispness of the pickles inside, Andre said. It also needed to be a “step change” for the brand, meeting the brand’s and consumers’ high expectations.
Ultimately, Grillo’s decided to make a unique custom mold with Berry. Grillo’s is currently rolling out the new packaging, with 32- and 16-ounce jars expected on shelves by the end of the year.
After years of complaints about the old containers, the feedback and dialogue on social media has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Andre said.
Comments on an April 17 Grillo’s Instagram post revealing the new jar said things like, “Finally I can stop opening the jars in the sink,” “The main reason I don’t buy more often. I’m back in baby!,” “I might actually buy these pickles again now that there won’t be pickle juice everywhere,” “It’s about freaking time!!!!!,” “On behalf of pickle-lovers everywhere with pain & numbness in their hands, thank you so much for this” and “This is a perfect example of a company taking consumer feedback.” One user who said they have neuropathy and carpal tunnel also commented thanking the company.
As a quirky company that started as a street vendor in Boston, Grillo’s plans to keep listening to consumers and making improvements. “We’ll continue to work with our friends, designers, artists and other brands we love and continue to think outside the box and give the pickle people what they want,” Andre said.
