---
title: "Desk research and semiotics for smaller treat portions | antedote"
description: "Strategic research for a confectionery company: its own studies, the category’s packs and claims, and a semiotic reading, turned into growth routes for smaller portions."
url: "https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/helping-people-choose-smaller-treats/"
author: "antedote"
---

# Helping people choose smaller treat portions more often

A confectionery company wanted more people to choose its smaller portions more often, without taking from the rest of its range. We built growth routes from more than thirty of its own studies, a review of the category and a semiotic reading.

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**Client**
Confectionery company

**Industry**
Snacks

**Kind of work**
Packaging and claims

**Our role**
Desk research and semiotics on the company’s existing evidence, for its smaller portions

## The question

The company wanted more people to choose the smaller portions of its treats more often, without taking anything away from the rest of its range.

It wanted routes that were commercial and practical, which it could act on through its packs, its claims and its communication.

## Our approach

We started from what the company already knew: more than thirty of its own studies and documents, read together before looking for anything new.

We then added what the archive couldn’t supply: how the category and its neighbors talk about portions on pack and in communication, what shoppers see in store, and a light semiotic reading of the codes that are fading, current and emerging.

A final working session with the company’s team shaped the evidence into routes.

## What the team came away with

A prioritized set of growth routes for its smaller portions, each one something the company could do through its packs, claims or communication, with next steps for developing them with consumers.

## Related work

[View packaging and claims case studies](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/?work=Packaging%20and%20claims#library)

- Food

    ### [Refreshing a heritage food pack for its loyal buyers](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/what-a-heritage-pack-must-keep/)

    A food company’s brand team was choosing among its agency’s new designs for a pack with loyal buyers, young and old.

- Food

    ### [Choosing which pack structures to develop for a new indulgent range](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/packaging-for-a-new-indulgent-range/)

    The products for a food company’s new indulgent range were defined; the pack was not.

**What we do**
[Concept testing and portfolio prioritization](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/concept-testing/)

**The thinking behind this**
- [Your research is easier to search. Is it still answering today’s question?](https://antedote.com/thinking/ai-reusing-market-research/)

## Working on a pack or a claim?

We’d be glad to help you test it with the people who buy.

[Talk to us](https://antedote.com/talk-to-us/) · [hello@antedote.com](mailto:hello@antedote.com)

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