Shopper Culture

Are Your Shoppers Actually Connoisseurs?

Have you noticed that your friends have recently transformed into "experts" on everything? They demand the best in all their purchases, from craft beers to video games and running shoes to food carts. Having an endless supply of information at our fingertips has resulted in everyone becoming "experts on" everything with a minimal time investment. We're looking to fast-track our way to Gladwell's 10,000 Hour-Rule. A recent New York Times article explored this phenomenon that has resulted from a simple equation: consumerism plus information equals the rise of the connoisseur.

Consumers, overwhelmed by choice, are looking for the “best” of everything. Time and money constraints have made the traditional road to connoisseurship too difficult for most; however,

How brands compete with private label competition in Australia

Here in Australia, the grocery retail landscape is tough. There are two huge, fierce retail competitors dominating our grocery lives.

These retailers are tough on their supplier brands. In the next 4 to 5 years, retailers will have up to 30% of their own brands on shelf, which means further supplier-branded product rationalizations.

Retailers have been driving shoppers to switch from their preferred brand products to their own private label equivalents that come at a lower price. Heinz has vocalized that the pressure from grocery retailers in Australia (among other things) is causing factory closures and forcing them to move operations off-shore. But this sentiment appears to have cooled in recent times. 

Having a Go at Winning London 2012 Olympic Games Tickets

With the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies just around the corner, a few of us at the newly opened Integer London office thought we would have a go trying to win some tickets from two of the official sponsors.

The End of Bar Codes in Tokyo?

Shoppers and retailers, rejoice! A new technology from Toshiba Tec that visually recognizes merchandise—vs. scanning a barcode—is being tested at grocery stores in Tokyo.

Much like “Google Goggles,” the object-recognition scanner uses a camera and pattern-recognition technology to identify items from produce to packaged goods. The device processes items based on color and pattern and is nuanced enough to tell the difference between two very similar-looking types of apples. And, let’s be honest, many humans can’t even do that.

This technology has many potential benefits for both shoppers and retailers, including a faster checkout process, fewer self-checkout errors, and reduced employee training time. Click here to see the scanner in action.   

Contributed by Integer Asia-Pacific

Integer Nordic Releases The Checkout 2012, Part 1

The Nordic Checkout 2012, Part 1 is the second iteration of The Nordic Checkout study. This release is the first of four parts for 2012. The study was conducted in partnership with Research Insight in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. All in all, 2,000 shoppers were interviewed in March of 2012. This issue covers Nordic shopper profiles (the Price Seeker is shown below), as well as digital and mobile behaviors. 

You can download The Nordic Checkout here.

Contributed by Integer Nordic

Starbucks Bounce-Back

My husband is a coffee freak! It is an absolute no-no to talk with him before he has had his morning coffee. And he likes GOOD coffee. Which means spending somewhere between $8 and $12 a bag (whole bean, of course). Oftentimes, I have had to contemplate taking out a second mortgage just to support his habit. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to find out that Starbucks offers their customers a little pay back.

On their packaging they have this great bounce-back offer that allows shoppers to get a FREE tall coffee at participating Starbucks if they bring in their empty bag. 

Private Label - The Kirana (Mom and Pop) Way

Private-label is a growing business in India—resulting from the boom of organized retail (or modern retail)—however, the growth of private-label food brands has not been limited to large, organized retailers. On a recent trip to my neighborhood mom and pop (or kirana) store, I noticed they were selling their own brand of private-label foods. It was nothing more than their “loose” foods, well-packaged under the store name, stacked neatly on the shelves next to branded products.

To give more context, the “loose” format, traditionally sold in most Indian mom and pop stores, includes foods like rice, flour, sugar, salt, spices, lentils, etc. These are available according to the quantity you need, and because most stores don’t have abundant shelf or aisle space, they are bagged by the retailer for each order. The appeal of loose foods over branded products stems from their perceived authenticity and lower price. However, incidences of adulteration in food have created bad quality perceptions for the loose foods, especially among those who are less price-conscious and more driven by quality attributes. Branded foods have an advantage due to convenient packaging and guarantees of consistency, proportion, and quality. 

Tales from Russia - Pride and Consumption

There it was, the new fragrence by Dior^® seen everywhere on the streets, in magazines, and plastered on the side of buildings. It was displayed proudly on the living-room armoire. Still in its box, it sat there like a beaming gold status symbol for anyone entering the room to see. While in Moscow, we visited a woman who took great pride in everything she purchased. From a store full of cosmetics stored in the refrigerator and drawers, to a lineup of body care displayed in the entry way, to that bottle of fragrance proudly sitting in the living room, she took great pride in the items she purchased and wanted the world to see them. This woman, like many others we visited, related products and name brands to social status. Much like her desire to have a larger home, move to a more affluent part of the city, and entertain more friends, she related health and beauty products to being successful and took great pride in her accomplishments.

How can everyday brands use marketing and branding along with packaging that elevates the product to being displayed on the living-room shelf? Beyond the transaction and usage, what other factors are playing a major role in emerging-markets consumption behaviors?

Click here to download the Tales From Russia study.

-Contributed by Stephen Moon

 

Tales From Russia - Product Benefit vs. Product Performance

“3X more cleaning power than the next leading detergent”. “3 blades”. “5 blades”. “Most technologically advanced”. These are all claims anyone in shopper marketing is accustomed to seeing. Product performance. As marketers we are grounded in understanding the technology that goes into new products and telling consumers why our shiny, new toy is better than their old one. For years we have believed that technology and product enhancements will win the hearts and wallets of consumers around the world. However, while recently spending time in the emerging market of Russia, we were alarmingly told otherwise. After spending several days with consumers in their homes and on their shopping trips, we quickly learned that product performance is not enough. What will 3X more cleaning ingredients do for me? What will extra blades on my razor do that my two blade disposable won’t? In a market that does not have a history of product innovation, people have no performance benefits to compare new technology with. So how do Western innovative brands overcome this lack of performance benefit? How do we communicate the benefit of our product through performance claims? 

Click here to download the Tales From Russia study.

-Contributed by Stephen Moon

 

 

New Tech Players Lighting Up the Retail Space

At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an unlikely retail player emerged. Fulton Innovation, using their eCoupled technology, showed a surprising transformation to packaged goods:

 

eCoupled is a wireless power solution. Fulton quickly realized that their technology has infinite uses: from charging devices to heating food to making your packaging more eye-catching – they created these custom-lit cereal boxes for pennies on the dollar.

As we all look for ways to make our goods pop off the shelves into people’s carts, I can see this being the next wave of in-store marketing. While it might not increase trial of familiar products (new look, same great taste), this could be a great way to attract attention to a new product – or to a product with low shelf presence. Either way it will definitely make consumers stop and take a second look.

-Contributed by Desereé DeZalia, Dallas

How Iconic Is Your Figure?

It's hard enough to have a recognizable silhouette. But what do you do when you find that your iconic shape just isn't that functional? Heinz had this experience when it redesigned its iconic bottle in 2002:

 

It's eminently functional: no drips, no liquid pouring out first, easy to grip, shatter-proof, holds more product, stacks face-out, fits the fridge door, etc. But did the designers include "unique" or "iconic" as criteria? Did they want to evoke the timeless curves of a cello? (They could have.) Given that Hunt's, A&P's, and other brands looks almost the same, probably not. (Interestingly, Heinz's new packets echo the new bottles).

How many cues are we using to help shoppers find our products in the Sea of 50,000 SKUs? Shoppers usually spend only a few seconds scanning the shelf for CPGs. Next time you're in a store, play the silhouette game: see how shapes define categories or products, and see which brands are recognizable by shape alone.

Thinking Outside The (Shoe) Box - Puma's "Clever Little Bag"

Puma recently made a bold design move that could revolutionize the shoe industry. Only it wasn't the shoe, but rather the shoe box, that underwent a major design overhaul.

The shoe box is so common that most people never give it a second thought. Puma realized that the vast amount of waste created by the single-use shoe box (and possibly also an opportunity to increase manufacturing profitability). They assigned a team of designers, headed by Yves Behar, to tackle the problem.

By focusing on the bag and making the box a reusable shell for transportation, Puma has made a fundamental shift in the way we think about environmental packaging and the changing retail landscape. Exactly how great is the expected impact? 

Decorative Barcodes To Customize Your Program

An interesting article in Springwise earlier this month discussed Vanity Barcodes launching a barcode-customization business much like the one Japanese Design Barcode previously introduced. The implications for brands could be really exciting and fun, especially in the CPG/consumer promotions world. Imagine running a loyalty "collect them all and win" program using nothing more than the barcodes on your packaging. Codes could also be customized specifically by category or product variety.  

With the rise of mobile technologies and incorporating things like digital barcode scanners and augmented reality, the potential use for specially designed barcodes becomes very intriguing.

In it's simplest form, custom barcodes could be used as unique branding features on product packaging as another way for brands to differentiate themselves.

I'm interested to see if any of the major CPG brands are experimenting with them yet.

-Contributed by Diane Elliston

Revealing Nutritional Benefits

Trends toward improved health and wellness have prompted many to include nutritional benefits at the point of purchase. These efforts have been organized by CPG organizations and, in at least one case, mandated by local governments. While, on the surface, providing shoppers clarity regarding the nutritional benefits of foods would always seem beneficial, these efforts have been received with mixed reactions.

Just this month, several U.S. food manufacturers announced they were discontinuing their efforts on an industry-devised labeling campaign meant to spotlight the nutritional benefits of their products. Smart Choice labeling (the green checkmark on the front of many CPG packages) is being phased out. The move away from Smart Choice came after criticism from state and federal authorities that the labeling could mislead shoppers into thinking processed foods high in sugar were an adequate substitute for healthier foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables. 

At the same time ConAgra Foods, the company behind the Manwich brand, will tout the nutritional value of the meal's finishing sauce in a new advertising campaign. Company representative Becky Niiya revealed, "Our key learning's from consumer focus groups was that all moms were unaware of Manwich's nutritional value... the fact that Manwich has a full serving of vegetables in each serving was something we were keeping to ourselves and had never communicated to consumers before." It will be interesting to see if shoppers accept this idea and begin substituting sloppy joe's for carrots.

One success story in the area of nutritional clarity and resulting shifts in shopper purchasing toward healthier foods can be observed at New York City fast-food restaurants. Two years ago, the city mandated these restaurants post nutritional information on menus and a recent study has found evidence that it is changing consumers' habits. The study reported that customers purchased lower-calorie foods at 9 of the 13 restaurants surveyed. What learnings from these changes could be applied to packaging that would shift a shopper's purchase to a healthier choice?

- Contributed by Paul Ballew

Augmented Reality (AR) at Retail

One of the newer digital technologies generating buzz right now is Augmented Reality, or AR. What exactly is it? AR is the technique of overlaying graphics on a real-world image so the graphics enhance and recontextualize the scene. Most of the techniques today are generated using a computer's webcam. Users point out a "target" -- a black-and-white image that the AR application uses to determine the scene geometry. Users can view it coming to life on a computer screen by holding it in front of the camera or shooting it with a mobile device. How can this virtual technology be successful for retail? There are successful AR companies bringing their technology to retail consumers in several different locations: at home, on the go (mobile), and at retail.

Let's face it -- online stores are limited when trying to show how their products fit on consumers. One way this has worked with eRetail is Ray Ban's Virtual Mirror. This use of AR allows consumers to virtually try on and sample eyewear while sitting at their desks. French company FittingBox created a technology FIT3D that uses a person's eyes, nose, and ears as natural AR-tracking markers to figure out exactly where the sunglasses "appear" on someone's face. Imagine what this fitting technology can do for retailers or even hair care products. 

Speaking of clothing retailers, another great example is how Zagura's Social Shopper app combines AR with motion capture. While it has some limitations (the user is required to print markers for it to work accurately) that might hinder its widespread use, it's nevertheless a very interesting and useful concept. The company hopes to license the technology to online retailers.