I realize I wasn't clear about that - these notebooks are well-liked and have tons of positive reviews. There is no low sales signal, because people who don't care about the labels still buy the notebooks. It's that they're missing more sales from the people who don't buy them because of the ugly labels on the front. That would be the same with TVs, the only way a TV maker would really know is if they sold a "bedroom TV" and saw no one was buying it or it was getting a lot of returns for the LED indicators being too bright. Even then, if you have consumers who are cognizant of bright LEDs and can't find any information about it, it might still not be indicated in the sales that certain consumers don't want it.

Will they even know to hire a UX researcher?

But even then, as just a consumer, antireviews would be super helpful.