BOS: brand on shelf

Which part of a grocery brand’s marketing mix is the most effective?

Marketing Departments across the country are always debating this question. It’s one that gets a lot of column inches in the industry press and one that has had some interesting additions to the debate since the advent of social media.

However, sometimes there isn’t a fully-fledged Marketing Department to debate the issue in the first place. Many brands in the grocery aisles rely upon their wits to gain listings and to win loyalty from their consumers. Their wits and their branded packaging.

Your branded packaging is your brand’s real estate. It is where you get to communicate with your consumer at the point of purchase, at the point of storage and at the point of the product’s use (depending on the product this may be repeated usage; how many times do you get an opportunity to communicate with your consumer when you’re a breakfast cereal?).

We have recently worked with a number of clients who understand that investment in their branded packaging is critical in the building of a brand’s credibility, potential for listings and, fundamentally, a strong relationship with their consumer. Through having a strong understanding of the importance of branded packaging they’ve punched above their weight in their respective categories.

One of these clients is Annabel Karmel. We have launched ready meals, snacks, drinks and “fuss pots” (ready meals in pot format for fussy toddlers) for her in the last six months and Annabel has built listings through determination to get the product right and strong belief in the power of appropriate packaging design. Listings have come thick and fast and her customers (mums) and consumers (their children) both buy into the brand through the packaging. Fuss Pots in particular work hard to involve the toddlers through engaging graphics to entice in the first place, but then also through involving ‘things to do and make’ with the packaging after the product itself has been consumed. Annabel has also been extremely canny in her building of the brand beyond the packaging through social media and very personable marketing activity based around the creation of the monsters by her consumers

Very often we will be taken through a brief from a client that has one core objective; to increase impact on shelf. Of course that’s important on a busy fixture, but your brand lives on ‘beyond the till’ and MUST take advantage of that life cycle through its pack design. Consumers are looking for engagement. They want to be entertained and involved as well as informed.

The really good news is that you can engage and entertain your consumers without breaking the bank. A little extra investment in time, thought and creativity at the pack design level can work wonders.

When I worked on the client side, in big FMCG marketing departments, the glamorous bits were the TV advertising, the big PR campaigns and other stuff generally done by expensive agencies up in the West End of London. The packaging design tended to be the less interesting, less glamorous bit, consequently left to the more junior members of the marketing team. But actually it’s the pack design that has to stand up to the test of time. It’s the consistent bit of the brand that enables the consumer to trust the brand, that continues to deliver brand messages right through the product life cycle.

So if you’ve got a limited marketing budget don’t despair. For the cost of one 30 second spot in the middle of Coronation Street you could make a real difference to your long term bottom line by investing in some thought and creativity with your branded packaging design. No part of the marketing mix works in isolation, but some work more efficiently than others!

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in the last few days about brands finding it difficult to compete with private label rivals. In particular the demise of the Huggies nappies brand which is being withdrawn from the UK and Covent Garden Soup, the brand that created the fresh packaged soup category, being delisted by Tesco a year after the retailer launched its own fresh soup brand.

Surprise surprise. My contribution to this blog in February this year (“Change in the balance of power?”) made the point that retailers are starting to get to the point where they hold most of the cards. Here is hard evidence of that development. Brands cannot produce fit-for-purpose products – even if they are the market leader like Covent Garden Soups – and rest on their laurels.  They have to build strong relationships with their consumers. Tesco’s venture brand, “New York Soup Co.” doesn’t have the sales of CGSC yet, but will Tesco customers stop buying fresh soup or will they just switch from Covent Garden to New York? I suspect the latter.

The nappies market is more complicated. It could be argued that soup is less emotive than caring for your baby. Mothers (particularly first time mothers) are very brand conscious and will tend to buy big brands for their little first-born. Retailer brands come into their own when the second child comes along and motherhood is no longer quite so scary. So the ultimate winner coming out of the Huggies demise is likely to be Pampers; mothers wishing to stick with a “proper” brand on the one hand and retailers having less of an opportunity to play one brand off against another strategically and commercially.

Little Angels is Asda’s baby brand. It is becoming a huge baby brand in its own right. It covers all areas of the baby market from nappies to feeding, from maternity to baby food. It is building loyalty and trust amongst Asda mothers and is very credible. It is a demonstration of the possibilities open to retailers. They have a ready-made route to market, they can take ownership of a whole aisle and they can work hard with their suppliers to up product quality to the extent that repeat purchase becomes a no-brainer. The significant difference between Little Angels and the Tesco ‘Venture Brands’ is that the Asda logo sits in pride of place on the front face, so it is clearly ASDA that is bringing you these great products. The customers’ trust is therefore built not just in Little Angels, but in Asda the brand as well, and (conversely) Asda’s above the line marketing activity trickles down to support Little Angels .

There is an argument that consumers will continue to demand the choice of big brands in store alongside the retailer brands. This was certainly the case in the early 90s when Sainsbury’s suffered by putting too much emphasis on Private Label at the expense of offering consumer choice. However, retailer Private Label has moved on leaps and bounds since then and Aldi have demonstrated that consumers are willing to forgo the big brands; retailers are more trusted to deliver fit-for-purpose products than they were in the past.

I have no doubt that the manufacturer brands will fight back. It has been reported that Covent Garden Soups are launching a £2m TV push, direct marketing and outdoor advertising campaign this autumn. Hopefully this will build demand and trust amongst consumers, and demand amongst retailers as well. But doesn’t that type of campaign all sound a bit “old hat”?

It has become clear that Retailers are trusted brands just like manufacturer brands. The latter will have to become much more pro-active and creative in all elements of their marketing mix if they are to continue to retain a place in the consumers’ hearts.