How Simply Gum used Highlight to confidently expand beyond gum

Key success metrics

Industry: Confectionery (gum, mints, gummies, chocolates)
Highlight Solutions Used: In-Home Usage Tests (IHUTs) with sensory testing, competitive testing, and positioning studies

The challenge: Moving beyond gum without a dedicated insights team

Did you know that most gum contains plastic? Simply Gum was founded on a mission to build a better-for-you gum–that doesn’t contain synthetic plastic–and have since expanded into new categories like mints, gummies, chocolates, and more. 

Growth, however, means their team has found themselves facing bigger questions—and higher stakes—than ever before.

“Since we're a small team, we don't have a dedicated insights team,” explained Jeannie K., VP of Marketing at Simply Gum. “For the majority of the company's history, we’ve done product testing ad hoc… [When we came to Highlight,] we had outgrown the ‘send it to our friends and family’ Google Form approach.”

Simply Gum’s expansion into chocolate was the trigger that made clear it was time for unbiased third party consumer research. Ecommerce wasn’t a reliable channel for early feedback on their chocolate (due to summer melt issues and high ad costs), and while their new chocolates did have distribution at retail, the team didn’t have clarity on what was and wasn’t working.

“We weren’t getting the kind of directional help we needed from our former ways of launching new items,” said Jeannie. “So we found Highlight, and their partnership has been extremely impactful for our business.”

The solution: Consumer insights, made simple

The Simply Gum team began using Highlight’s in-home usage tests (iHUTs) to get real, unbiased feedback from pre-verified consumers in their own homes. They tested multiple product lines—including chocolates, mints, and gummies—across a variety of objectives:

• Sensory testing: Measuring product liking and quality
• Competitive testing: Comparing to known category leaders
• Positioning research: Understanding how consumers perceive the product

“Every test has been really helpful for us,” said Jeannie. “After that first chocolate study we were like, ‘we learned so much—it was so good.’”

Likewise, Highlight’s product intelligence was the key to cracking the code on Simply Gum’s gummies. “We wrestled with questions for years,” said Jeannie. “Had we just done this survey years ago, it would’ve saved us multiple name and packaging changes.”

The Simply Gum team especially appreciated:

• Explore & Scorecard tools: “We use everything,” said Jeannie about the Highlight Explore and Insights tabs. “Verbatims, crosstabs… the penalty analysis is so critical for us when we look at product changes”

Penalty Analysis makes clear exactly what is and isn’t working for consumers about your product, so you understand what needs tweaking, versus what shouldn’t be touched.

• Open-ended feedback: “The verbatims were really fun to read and helpful. People responded in a meaningful way and gave us actionable insights,” said Kaitlin Egloff, Innovation Manager at Simply Gum.

Highlight AI automatically summarizes your open-end responses, tags oft-repeated keywords for easy filtering, and detects sentiment to make qualitative analysis much faster and easier.

“I feel like the whole program is set up so efficiently and easy to use,” said Kaitlin. “I don’t have consumer testing experience, but even at my knowledge level it was easy to go in. Your team was extremely supportive, always brainstorming ideas on how to ask questions.”

“We love refreshing the results,” added Kaitlin. “It’s the most exciting thing happening in my life when the data starts coming in!” Kaitlin, we know exactly how you feel! 

The impact: Data-driven decisions that drive growth

Using Highlight gave Simply Gum the clarity they needed to make critical changes across their portfolio:

• Mints: The team learned about the competition their mints faced on shelf alongside other products in the category, informing updates to their packaging and new messaging (like “real peppermint oil”) to emphasize what consumers valued.
  
  
• Gummies: The team discovered consumers appreciated the product more strongly as fruit snacks vs. traditional gummies, leading to a repositioning and packaging change that leaned into their fruit content.

• Gum: The team saw that while plastic-based gum won on some sensory measures, consumer preference switched to Simply Gum when told about plastic content—unlocking a powerful marketing insight for their upcoming gum relaunch.

“It taught us that as we relaunch this gum, we have to lead with education,” said Jeannie. “We know at a sensory level that consumers slightly prefer the plastic gum across some characteristics, but once they hear that our gum has no plastic, their preferences switch. That has been a big unlock for us.”

Highlight’s platform features also made it easy to extract insights and share them–including the Instant Reports the sales team uses for retailer decks.

Looking ahead: Innovating & renovating with confidence

For Simply Gum, Highlight turned guesswork into clarity. What started as a single chocolate study became a reliable, repeatable process for consumer-led product innovation across their portfolio.

“It’s been extremely impactful for our business,” said Kaitlin. “We’ve gotten the whole team on board seeing just how valuable it’s been.” 

With four research projects under their belt since kicking off Highlight research in 2025, the future looks bright for Simply Gum. “We love it,” said Jeannie. “Highlight has been a great tool for a company of our size and our budget. Every test has been really helpful for us.”

Want to try Simply Gum’s products for yourself? Visit them online or find them at retailers like Whole Foods, CVS and more.