Service 01 · Customer Research

Your ads are failing
because you're guessing.

Most brands build campaigns around assumptions about why people buy. We go talk to your buyers first — and build everything around what they actually tell us.

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I keep buying it because I always have. I don't really think about it.

Repeat buyer · packaged snacks

I tried it once at a friend's place. That's the only reason I picked it up.

First-time buyer · beverage

The insight

I'm not buying protein. I'm planning Thursday dinner.

The finding that changed the brief

Honestly? It was the only one that fit in the door of my fridge.

Lapsed buyer · dairy

I looked at yours and bought the other one. It just felt more like me.

Competitor buyer · frozen

Illustrative of what buyer interviews surface

The Problem

Most agencies skip the part that matters most.

When most brands brief an agency, the agency nods, builds a target audience from demographic data, and starts running ads. Nobody asked a single buyer why they actually bought.

The result: creative that speaks to what the brand thinks is compelling — not what the buyer found compelling. Campaigns that look polished but don't convert. Ad spend that keeps going up while results stay flat.

The root problem isn't the creative. It's not the targeting. It's that nobody found out why.

"Our buyers care about taste and quality."

–Accepts brief, builds creative

✓Asks real buyers if that's actually true

"We know who our customer is."

–Uses demo data, builds personas

✓Interviews buyers before defining audience

"Our competitors are X, Y, Z brands."

–Takes the category at face value

✓Asks buyers what they considered instead

"Our messaging highlights our differentiators."

–Runs creative, tests, iterates

✓Knows the insight before writing a word

How We Work

The Research Process

Three steps to the insight that changes everything.

Last year alone, we talked to 135,745 buyers across food and beverage categories. The methodology is consistent. The insight is always specific — and always different from what the brand expected.

Every research engagement ends with one core finding: the real reason people buy in your category. That insight becomes the brief for everything we build next.

5 Ps Framework Why People Buy Pyramid Purchase Decisions Replacement Model

01

In-depth buyer interviews

We recruit and interview real buyers in your category — your customers, lapsed customers, and people who chose a competitor. We ask about the moment they decided, what they were weighing, and what tipped them. Not surveys. Conversations.

Before the first interview · AdVault

Graza food and beverage ad creative from the Schaefer AdVault

Ithaca food and beverage ad creative from the Schaefer AdVault

TRIP food and beverage ad creative from the Schaefer AdVault

We read what your category is already claiming — 103,750 live F&B ads — so the guide tests what buyers haven't already been told, and asks about the claims they have seen. Browse the AdVault ↗

02

Quantitative validation

Interviews surface the pattern. Surveys validate it. We confirm that what we heard in conversations is representative at scale — before we build campaigns around it. No guessing about whether the insight is real.

03

The insight brief

Every engagement ends with one deliverable: the core insight. The specific tension, motivation, or trigger that actually drives purchase decisions in your category. This becomes the foundation for your audience targeting, creative brief, and campaign strategy.

Our research engine

F&B buyer conversations · updated annually

In-house — not outsourced

135,745

F&B customer conversations in the last year, across every category we work in

Grocery / CPG

42%

QSR / Restaurant

31%

DTC Food & Bev

18%

Specialty Retail

9%

Methods1:1 interviewsSurveysIn-storeLapsed & competitor buyers

The Framework

Why People Buy Pyramid

Every insight lands somewhere on this pyramid.

Buyer motivation isn't one thing. Research tells us which tier your buyer is actually deciding on — and the category tells us how crowded that tier already is. The shares below are how 103,750 live F&B ads distribute across the tiers today.

Basic function — what it is and what it does29.7%

Emotional payoff — how it makes them feel27.4%

Personal growth — who it helps them become23.1%

Beyond self — what it does for others2.1%

Nearly three in ten F&B ads lead with basic function — the easiest brief to write and the easiest for a competitor to match. Research tells you whether that's where your buyer actually decides.

Read the framework

Deliverables

What you walk away with.

Research without a clear output is just spending money on conversations. Every Schaefer research engagement produces concrete deliverables that directly feed into your paid media strategy.

Interview Synthesis Report

Every buyer conversation condensed into a clear synthesis — the themes, the tensions, and the moments that kept repeating. Written to be read, not filed away.

Sample segmentation map showing three buyer segments defined by decision driver

Audience Segmentation Map

The distinct buyer types in your category — not by demographics, but by what drives the decision. Includes which segment to prioritize and why.

Creative Brief

The insight turned into a creative direction. The single message your ads should lead with, the proof points that support it, and the tone that fits the buyer.

Sample targeting recommendations showing which signals to use and which to stop chasing

Audience Targeting Recommendations

Specific targeting inputs for Meta, Google, and retail media — built from buyer psychology, not guesswork. Includes which signals matter and which ones to stop chasing.

Track Record

135,745

buyer conversations across F&B categories last year

This isn't market research done by a research firm. It's buyer interviews run by the same team that writes the creative briefs and runs the ads. We talk to buyers because it changes how we work — not because we were asked to.

Case Study · MeatWorks Co.

"The insight that came out of research was the opposite of what we expected."

We assumed MeatWorks buyers were driven by protein quality. Research revealed the real driver: occasion. They weren't shopping for the best protein — they were planning a specific meal moment. That single shift changed everything about how we targeted and messaged.

Read the Case Study →

Straus Family Creamery organic dairy lineup

Case Study · Straus Family Creamery

Research surfaced a buyer segment that wasn't in the brief.

Straus had a loyal core. Research showed there was a second segment — buyers who converted through a completely different message. We built separate creative tracks for each. Both outperformed the original.

Read the Case Study →

Why It Matters

Research doesn't just inform the brief.
It changes every decision.

When you know why people buy, the downstream decisions get faster and cheaper. You stop A/B testing your way to an answer you could have found in a conversation.

Audience Targeting

Stop targeting demographics. Target motivations.

Your buyer isn't "35-44 female." She's someone with a specific occasion and a specific hesitation. Research tells you what both are.

Creative Strategy

Lead with what actually moves people, not what sounds good in a brief.

Creative built from buyer language outperforms creative built from brand language. Every time.

Media Efficiency

Spend less getting to a winner.

When creative is built around a validated insight, you don't need 12 variations to find what works. You start closer to the answer.

Step 01

Research

One validated reason people buy — in their words.