ASDA’s announcement that it is launching a 180-strong children’s food range
incorporating products taste-tested by children themselves underlines the
importance for both brands and retailers of authentic consumer insights as part
of the new product development process.
The retailer has announced that its new line, an extension of its existing Chosen By You
range, had been subjected to extensive independent taste testing by young
children before their parents gave their own approval.
To get authentic and valuable insights to inform your NPD or marketing
strategies, brands and retailers need to know and understand their audiences to
the extent that they can form proper relationships with them. A qualitative research approach
particularly when the demographic you are trying to reach is so young can help
fast-track these insights, by facilitating detailed face to face interaction
between clients and consumers.
It is important to ensure that products are tested in as natural
an environment as possible for the consumer and to ensure that different aspects
of the products being tested are linked to purchase intent. In this way, brands
will know which dimensions are driving interest and, therefore, which elements
are the most crucial to get right. For example if the crunchiness of a topping
is the most important element of a product and is therefore the feature that is
driving most purchase interest, it is vital that this is absolutely right.
Although younger children particularly can't necessarily tell you too much, how
much they eat and how willingly remains a good indicator.
However, even though this is a range chosen by kids, ASDA will be aware that parental involvement is also critical, especially with the Mum’s role
as gatekeeper trying to achieve the balance between what she wants in food for
her child and what the child will actually eat.
This is the age of the informed consumer, who, largely due to the availability
of social platforms as a way of disseminating views and comparing one brand
against another, has more power than at any point previously and who is
increasingly unafraid of using it. Whilst a relatively small proportion of
consumers are as yet moved to post regular product reviews, many more look at
them before buying, whilst a quick glance through the supermarket websites shows
that just about anything is worthy of comment and expectations are high. Nothing
will get parents talking to their friends more – for better or for worse- than
the quality of products being sold for their children.
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
Neuroscience sounds great but it’s not the panacea for all research ills
There was an interesting piece in Marketing Magazine recently by Mhairi McEwan, chief executive and co-founder of Brand Learning, which discussed the way the world of customer insight is being influenced by two apparently conflicting forces: neuroscience and big data.
In her article, McEwan set out the differences between a neuroscientific approach with its subconscious associations, beliefs and emotional triggers influencing our behaviours, and data, where prediction analytics can be used to predict behaviour. Her view is that “neuroscience explains a quick, more intuitive style, whereas big data can drive a slower, more analytic style”.
As researchers and marketers, we are in the business of understanding why consumers do certain things. This is going to be a mix of rational reasons (which can be accessed by direct questions) and less rational reasons (which can't so easily be accessed by direct questions). The upshot of that is that no one approach used in isolation will give you the rounded findings you need. That's why at Engage we prefer to create bespoke solutions according to the particular brief and then using the tools most to appropriate to that brief, rather than advocating any one tool over another.
There’s no doubt that mention of neuroscientific approaches impresses potential clients. It also gives a clear impression that we as an industry we are progressing, but at present it remains a very small part of research, and actually not used by many. The reality is that the tools at our disposal are only as useful as the questions we ask. The neuroscientific approach is useful in gauging people’s reactions but it does not give any idea of those reactions within any kind of context or if a subsequent conversation with someone else causes you to reappraise your thoughts. The data approach may be lacking in this but it will give you more of a balance view based on the responses of many more people.
We need to achieve some balance and recognise that neuroscience is just another tool if you have access to using it. It is not the holy grail of research, as more than one person has espoused at times "it can tell you what people are thinking even when they can't". As McEwan’s article points out, for most marketers all tools can be useful; no one tool is the panacea. There is no universally conclusive tool for all situations and, as researchers and marketers, we should always keep that in mind.
Ends
In her article, McEwan set out the differences between a neuroscientific approach with its subconscious associations, beliefs and emotional triggers influencing our behaviours, and data, where prediction analytics can be used to predict behaviour. Her view is that “neuroscience explains a quick, more intuitive style, whereas big data can drive a slower, more analytic style”.
As researchers and marketers, we are in the business of understanding why consumers do certain things. This is going to be a mix of rational reasons (which can be accessed by direct questions) and less rational reasons (which can't so easily be accessed by direct questions). The upshot of that is that no one approach used in isolation will give you the rounded findings you need. That's why at Engage we prefer to create bespoke solutions according to the particular brief and then using the tools most to appropriate to that brief, rather than advocating any one tool over another.
There’s no doubt that mention of neuroscientific approaches impresses potential clients. It also gives a clear impression that we as an industry we are progressing, but at present it remains a very small part of research, and actually not used by many. The reality is that the tools at our disposal are only as useful as the questions we ask. The neuroscientific approach is useful in gauging people’s reactions but it does not give any idea of those reactions within any kind of context or if a subsequent conversation with someone else causes you to reappraise your thoughts. The data approach may be lacking in this but it will give you more of a balance view based on the responses of many more people.
We need to achieve some balance and recognise that neuroscience is just another tool if you have access to using it. It is not the holy grail of research, as more than one person has espoused at times "it can tell you what people are thinking even when they can't". As McEwan’s article points out, for most marketers all tools can be useful; no one tool is the panacea. There is no universally conclusive tool for all situations and, as researchers and marketers, we should always keep that in mind.
Ends
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
Lunchbox wars : Navigating the shark infested custard of healthy school meals politics
After a government-commissioned report found that just one per cent of packed lunches were as nutritious as school meals, it is being claimed in some quarters that packed lunches should be banned and free school lunches made available to all primary school pupils.
Whether this is practical – or even desirable – is a matter for others to decide - but what steps can brands take to win over children and mums to healthy food? Can – or should - brands be taking steps to become the champion of the healthy packed lunch, or is their responsibility simply towards selling the products they make?
The report found that the packed lunch bias remains in favour of a sandwich, crisps, drink, chocolate and fruit (which is often returned uneaten). In an ideal world the aim would be to subtly change the 'make up' of a packed lunch, but the vast majority of parents probably want something that is easy to prepare and acceptable to their kids – eating something of indifferent long term health is better than the short term risk of their kids eating not eating anything.
Combining the benefits of convenience and acceptability to children gives us the plethora of "individually wrapped" products to place in a lunch box. However, there are products like Cheestrings, which are undeniably child-friendly in their focus and convenience, which have also tried to leverage their health credentials.
So how might brands develop products that kids will love and parents will approve thus making inroads into this significant territory? How can they get the correct balance between the sometimes competing wishes of kids, parents, teachers, campaigners, the government... One of the problems in this debate is the dissonance between what people need, what they want, what they say they would like and what they subsequently do. It is undoubtedly the case that the children of our nation need healthy lunches (whether in boxes or school meals), however what our kids want is often a different matter. Thus, when asked, parents might say that they would like healthy options but what they then put in their packing up reflects what their kids want rather than need. How can better research help brands navigate this sea of cognitive dissonance.
First of all do involve parents – who will probably remind you that convenience is the elephant in the room in all of this – preparing several packed lunches day in day out can be a tedious and time consuming chore. But don’t just involve them by asking them what they want. Instead a combination of self-ethnography (e.g. via smartphone to capture real behaviour, real rituals) combined with a behavioural economics-inspired quantitative study will provide a far more authentic account of what will work in market, than relying on a more classic approach.
Brands that take this more sensitive approach will understand which buttons to press to deliver the healthiness that many parents would love to provide, in a way which fits with kids wants & with the practicalities of family’s everyday lives.
Whether this is practical – or even desirable – is a matter for others to decide - but what steps can brands take to win over children and mums to healthy food? Can – or should - brands be taking steps to become the champion of the healthy packed lunch, or is their responsibility simply towards selling the products they make?
The report found that the packed lunch bias remains in favour of a sandwich, crisps, drink, chocolate and fruit (which is often returned uneaten). In an ideal world the aim would be to subtly change the 'make up' of a packed lunch, but the vast majority of parents probably want something that is easy to prepare and acceptable to their kids – eating something of indifferent long term health is better than the short term risk of their kids eating not eating anything.
Combining the benefits of convenience and acceptability to children gives us the plethora of "individually wrapped" products to place in a lunch box. However, there are products like Cheestrings, which are undeniably child-friendly in their focus and convenience, which have also tried to leverage their health credentials.
So how might brands develop products that kids will love and parents will approve thus making inroads into this significant territory? How can they get the correct balance between the sometimes competing wishes of kids, parents, teachers, campaigners, the government... One of the problems in this debate is the dissonance between what people need, what they want, what they say they would like and what they subsequently do. It is undoubtedly the case that the children of our nation need healthy lunches (whether in boxes or school meals), however what our kids want is often a different matter. Thus, when asked, parents might say that they would like healthy options but what they then put in their packing up reflects what their kids want rather than need. How can better research help brands navigate this sea of cognitive dissonance.
First of all do involve parents – who will probably remind you that convenience is the elephant in the room in all of this – preparing several packed lunches day in day out can be a tedious and time consuming chore. But don’t just involve them by asking them what they want. Instead a combination of self-ethnography (e.g. via smartphone to capture real behaviour, real rituals) combined with a behavioural economics-inspired quantitative study will provide a far more authentic account of what will work in market, than relying on a more classic approach.
Brands that take this more sensitive approach will understand which buttons to press to deliver the healthiness that many parents would love to provide, in a way which fits with kids wants & with the practicalities of family’s everyday lives.
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
He who shouts the loudest - when brand advertising offends….almost nobody
Britain is becoming a complainant’s society. A report published earlier this year by the Institute of Customer Service reported that Britons are more likely to complain than they were five years ago.
Indeed, it seems, if you are to believe some recent examples, that this complaint culture has been extended to brands and the ways in which they advertise their products. In recent weeks, soft drink IRN-BRU and Lynx shower gel have been among the products whose advertising has been subjected to scrutiny and subsequent decisions by the Advertising Standard Authority based on viewer complaints. In both cases, the complaints were dismissed.
However, closer examination makes for interesting reading. The IRN-BRU case was investigated on the back of 176 complaints; the Lynx advertisement on the back of just seventeen. IRN-BRU is the third best selling soft drink in the UK, after Coca-Cola and Pepsi in a carbonated soft drinks market worth £3.2bn per annum (1). In Scotland the equivalent of 12 cans of IRN-BRU 330ml are consumed every second (1). Yet the brand was held to account on the back of just 176 complaints. Similarly with Lynx, a brand used by more than eight million men across the UK & Ireland every day; equivalent to having the brand in one of every four households in the country(2). And seventeen people complained.
So how representative are these complaints about television advertising, especially compared with market research? And are these complaints a proper barometer for public opinion, or just the dissent of a vocal minority? On its website, the ASA confirms it needs just one justified complaint to begin an investigation into an advertisement. The ASA’s concern is whether the Advertising Codes have been breached rather the number of complaints it receives. In this sense it is judging whether the brand has breached the code rather whether it has caused offence, which can be quite a subjective measurement and may not always be the same thing.
Whilst no brand intentionally sets out to offend in its advertising, brands will knowingly tread the line between appealing to the demographic most suited to its products. A brand targeting 25 year old men is not necessarily going to be thinking about the impact on 55 year old women if they are not its core target audience.
What is perhaps more interesting is that proper market research is being conducted every day on behalf of brands in a scientific and proven manner, to test products, packaging and advertising for the way in which they resonate with their target audiences. There investment in this research will produce, inevitably, some negative comments but this will be fed back into the process to deliver a result that works best for the brand and its consumers. How, then, can it be right that brands can be held answerable to a number of people that are, without being disrespectful, a statistical irrelevance? Even if you accept that the number of people who complain are representative of a bigger, silent demographic, their numbers would still be insignificantly small.
The ASA has long demanded on all our behalves – and rightly so – that advertising be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Three of those are black and white decisions; the fourth – decent – is always going to be a matter of opinion and it remains questionable that the decency of brand advertising should be questioned on a sample as potentially small as one person out of the nearly 70 million who live in the UK.
1Source AGBARR.co.uk 2Source: unilever.co.uk
Indeed, it seems, if you are to believe some recent examples, that this complaint culture has been extended to brands and the ways in which they advertise their products. In recent weeks, soft drink IRN-BRU and Lynx shower gel have been among the products whose advertising has been subjected to scrutiny and subsequent decisions by the Advertising Standard Authority based on viewer complaints. In both cases, the complaints were dismissed.
However, closer examination makes for interesting reading. The IRN-BRU case was investigated on the back of 176 complaints; the Lynx advertisement on the back of just seventeen. IRN-BRU is the third best selling soft drink in the UK, after Coca-Cola and Pepsi in a carbonated soft drinks market worth £3.2bn per annum (1). In Scotland the equivalent of 12 cans of IRN-BRU 330ml are consumed every second (1). Yet the brand was held to account on the back of just 176 complaints. Similarly with Lynx, a brand used by more than eight million men across the UK & Ireland every day; equivalent to having the brand in one of every four households in the country(2). And seventeen people complained.
So how representative are these complaints about television advertising, especially compared with market research? And are these complaints a proper barometer for public opinion, or just the dissent of a vocal minority? On its website, the ASA confirms it needs just one justified complaint to begin an investigation into an advertisement. The ASA’s concern is whether the Advertising Codes have been breached rather the number of complaints it receives. In this sense it is judging whether the brand has breached the code rather whether it has caused offence, which can be quite a subjective measurement and may not always be the same thing.
Whilst no brand intentionally sets out to offend in its advertising, brands will knowingly tread the line between appealing to the demographic most suited to its products. A brand targeting 25 year old men is not necessarily going to be thinking about the impact on 55 year old women if they are not its core target audience.
What is perhaps more interesting is that proper market research is being conducted every day on behalf of brands in a scientific and proven manner, to test products, packaging and advertising for the way in which they resonate with their target audiences. There investment in this research will produce, inevitably, some negative comments but this will be fed back into the process to deliver a result that works best for the brand and its consumers. How, then, can it be right that brands can be held answerable to a number of people that are, without being disrespectful, a statistical irrelevance? Even if you accept that the number of people who complain are representative of a bigger, silent demographic, their numbers would still be insignificantly small.
The ASA has long demanded on all our behalves – and rightly so – that advertising be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Three of those are black and white decisions; the fourth – decent – is always going to be a matter of opinion and it remains questionable that the decency of brand advertising should be questioned on a sample as potentially small as one person out of the nearly 70 million who live in the UK.
1Source AGBARR.co.uk 2Source: unilever.co.uk
Friday, 12 July 2013
Do brands need to get into bed with promiscuous consumers?
The news this week that product promotions in supermarkets are failing to produce the increase in sales they once did could prompt not only a change in the way brands and retailers approach the issue of deals but also has potential implications for the relationship between brand and consumer.
A study by IRI detailed how the volume of goods sold on promotion fell last year. The report outlined how the total volume of food and non food products sold on promotion here fell 0.8% year on year to the end of March. The UK remains, however, the most heavily 'promoted' market in Europe with 55% of food and 59% of non food products sold on promotion. That is a huge proportion, especially if you look at the most promoted categories, according to IRI: beer & cider, where 68.7% of goods are sold on deal and confectionary, 66.5%.
There is a long term trend behind these figures of which brands would be wise to take note. Promotions are a perfectly legitimate and valuable sales device whilst they retain the power to surprise or even shock. But when they become the norm and consumers take them for granted, returning a product to a normal price structure and margin becomes tough. This is compounded by situations in which brands are required to bear the burden of expensive trade promotions.
There is a need for research to assist brands in gaining a greater understanding of what goes through the shopper’s mind when they encounter promotions in-store. How do they affect shopping plans and habits and but also perceptions of brands? If continual promotion has the effect of decreasing brand equity in the eyes of the consumer, eroding its ability to command full price over time, what conversations do brands need to have with consumers to counter these perceptions.
Most retailers have moved some way in this direction with the launch (and subsequent rebranding) of economy ranges. This may well represent the future as a recent Mintel study revealed a drastic turnaround in the fortunes of economy and premium ranges. Their report showed that, of the 12,500 products launched in 2012, 9% were economy and 7% premium. This compares with five years ago when it was 9% premium and only 2% economy. The Mintel study further showed that of those surveyed, 55% said they would only buy certain brands and products when on promotion.
There are two learnings here: first, the balance of power is shifting in favour of the consumer. The consumer is beginning to dictate - perhaps by economic necessity or perhaps by a new-found canniness borne out of necessity - the way products are produced and made available to them and at what price points. The success of discounters like Aldi and Lidl supports this theory. Second, with multiples taking control over economy ranges with own label products, brands need to use research more heavily than ever to become intimate with the consumer across all the various retail platforms, understand their changing demands and buying promiscuity and use those insights to inform their NPD and marketing strategies moving forward.
A study by IRI detailed how the volume of goods sold on promotion fell last year. The report outlined how the total volume of food and non food products sold on promotion here fell 0.8% year on year to the end of March. The UK remains, however, the most heavily 'promoted' market in Europe with 55% of food and 59% of non food products sold on promotion. That is a huge proportion, especially if you look at the most promoted categories, according to IRI: beer & cider, where 68.7% of goods are sold on deal and confectionary, 66.5%.
There is a long term trend behind these figures of which brands would be wise to take note. Promotions are a perfectly legitimate and valuable sales device whilst they retain the power to surprise or even shock. But when they become the norm and consumers take them for granted, returning a product to a normal price structure and margin becomes tough. This is compounded by situations in which brands are required to bear the burden of expensive trade promotions.
There is a need for research to assist brands in gaining a greater understanding of what goes through the shopper’s mind when they encounter promotions in-store. How do they affect shopping plans and habits and but also perceptions of brands? If continual promotion has the effect of decreasing brand equity in the eyes of the consumer, eroding its ability to command full price over time, what conversations do brands need to have with consumers to counter these perceptions.
Most retailers have moved some way in this direction with the launch (and subsequent rebranding) of economy ranges. This may well represent the future as a recent Mintel study revealed a drastic turnaround in the fortunes of economy and premium ranges. Their report showed that, of the 12,500 products launched in 2012, 9% were economy and 7% premium. This compares with five years ago when it was 9% premium and only 2% economy. The Mintel study further showed that of those surveyed, 55% said they would only buy certain brands and products when on promotion.
There are two learnings here: first, the balance of power is shifting in favour of the consumer. The consumer is beginning to dictate - perhaps by economic necessity or perhaps by a new-found canniness borne out of necessity - the way products are produced and made available to them and at what price points. The success of discounters like Aldi and Lidl supports this theory. Second, with multiples taking control over economy ranges with own label products, brands need to use research more heavily than ever to become intimate with the consumer across all the various retail platforms, understand their changing demands and buying promiscuity and use those insights to inform their NPD and marketing strategies moving forward.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
All smoke and mirrors - can you really prepare for an e-cig-style revolution?
The announcement that the UK is to regulate electronic cigarettes as non-prescription medicines from 2016 merely underlines their rapid and spectacular success as a less harmful alternative to smoking. Indeed research suggests that that around 1.3 million people currently use e-cigarettes in Britain, up from 700,000 a year ago.
The battery-operated devices, which enable users to inhale a nicotine-laced vapour, are the latest in a line of transformational products that not only engage with consumers but actually change their whole pattern of behaviour. You don’t have to think back too far for other examples: who, prior to the launch of the iPad, would have thought that the combination of a laptop and a mobile phone wouldn’t be sufficient for our needs? Who before Amazon introduced the Kindle really thought we’d be ditching our paperbacks and downloading novels onto an e-reader? And if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be paying to download music onto an MP3 player and not getting a physical product for my money, I would have thought you mad. Such is life in the digital age.
These are the success stories. The salient point, of course, is that for every iPad or Kindle, there are tens of thousands of products that never achieved their inventor’s goals. Planning for the moment when a revolutionary product achieves acceptance is, by the nature of the beast, really difficult because in many of these cases, target consumers will not be able to envisage using the proposed product until they actually do. This makes conventional research approaches less than reliable because you are asking consumers to imagine behaviours for which they have no point of reference. Equally, however, a brand cannot commit expenditure to the launch of a left-field product without some insight on which to base its plans. Perhaps the starting point is not the product but the gap the product is intended to fill. Research about the problems consumers experience with the status quo will give an indication of whether and where there is a gap to be filled. It is then up to the ingenuity of the product designers to come up with something to meet the need. Thereafter, it is about selecting the likely early adopters and giving them the time to test the product properly as part of their everyday life. This is likely to involve smaller scale samples and for a longer than average timescale in order to benefit from the insights secured by consumers living with and using the product for an extended period.
Choosing these people correctly is critical to success. There is a need to not only find “cool status” people whose desirability is likely to transfer to the product as a tacit endorsement, but it is perhaps just as important to find communities of people who are most likely to become eventual brand advocates. These are the people sufficiently passionate about the product and the problem it solves that they will want to become almost evangelical in their passion for it. These are the people who will have such an emotional attachment to the product that they will do much of your initial marketing for you.
And when that’s all happened and news of your product is spreading virally, that’s the time to sit back, listen to your iPod and have a long draw on an e-cigarette.
The battery-operated devices, which enable users to inhale a nicotine-laced vapour, are the latest in a line of transformational products that not only engage with consumers but actually change their whole pattern of behaviour. You don’t have to think back too far for other examples: who, prior to the launch of the iPad, would have thought that the combination of a laptop and a mobile phone wouldn’t be sufficient for our needs? Who before Amazon introduced the Kindle really thought we’d be ditching our paperbacks and downloading novels onto an e-reader? And if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be paying to download music onto an MP3 player and not getting a physical product for my money, I would have thought you mad. Such is life in the digital age.
These are the success stories. The salient point, of course, is that for every iPad or Kindle, there are tens of thousands of products that never achieved their inventor’s goals. Planning for the moment when a revolutionary product achieves acceptance is, by the nature of the beast, really difficult because in many of these cases, target consumers will not be able to envisage using the proposed product until they actually do. This makes conventional research approaches less than reliable because you are asking consumers to imagine behaviours for which they have no point of reference. Equally, however, a brand cannot commit expenditure to the launch of a left-field product without some insight on which to base its plans. Perhaps the starting point is not the product but the gap the product is intended to fill. Research about the problems consumers experience with the status quo will give an indication of whether and where there is a gap to be filled. It is then up to the ingenuity of the product designers to come up with something to meet the need. Thereafter, it is about selecting the likely early adopters and giving them the time to test the product properly as part of their everyday life. This is likely to involve smaller scale samples and for a longer than average timescale in order to benefit from the insights secured by consumers living with and using the product for an extended period.
Choosing these people correctly is critical to success. There is a need to not only find “cool status” people whose desirability is likely to transfer to the product as a tacit endorsement, but it is perhaps just as important to find communities of people who are most likely to become eventual brand advocates. These are the people sufficiently passionate about the product and the problem it solves that they will want to become almost evangelical in their passion for it. These are the people who will have such an emotional attachment to the product that they will do much of your initial marketing for you.
And when that’s all happened and news of your product is spreading virally, that’s the time to sit back, listen to your iPod and have a long draw on an e-cigarette.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
When it comes to brands, this time it’s personal
Whether it’s a complimentary engraved chalice from Stella Artois, a personalised bottle of HP Sauce with your Dad’s name on it for Father’s Day or whether you’ve been hunting through supermarket shelves to find a bottle of Coke with your name or your best friend’s name on it, one thing’s for certain, brands are getting personal.
Personalisation, of course, is nothing new. For some time you have been able to personalise your Adidas trainers, buy a bespoke bottle of Famous Grouse whiskey, or design your own Converse shoes, but this is really the first time that personalisation has gone mass market.
As difficult as it is for mass consumption brands, if you get it right, it really works. It taps into our present desire as individuals to both stand out from the crowd whilst also fitting into it, enjoying the thrill that somehow something has been produced just for us or for us to share with someone we love. And, for the brand, to be associated with that feeling is priceless.
Although Starbucks created a stir with their personalised coffee cups, it is Coca-Cola that seems to have made the most obvious breakthrough. Named Coke bottles have stepped out from the supermarket shelves and created active spontaneous and engaging brand conversations. It has become a subject of real world conversations between friends; people are posting pictures of their personalised bottles on their social media sites. It is a rare example of a brand actually meeting people in their real lives rather than merely pushing a marketing message at them.
So, where do we go from here? At the moment personalisation has extended to allowing limited influence over the design of products, within the confines of certain options, or simply having your name (which of course is not unique) on something. Could more targeted personalisation be the next thing where brands offer you the chance to select the composition of products to influence their strength to suit your personal tastes.
Either way, after a campaign as seismic as the Coca-Cola name campaign, anyone looking to merely repeat the exercise risks appearing a little late to the game. The key to leveraging our desire for personal recognition is to know clearly what your customers are going to value, how and why. Research will give you the data and the insights to ensure it is conceived in a way that is right for both the brand and its customers.
Personalisation, of course, is nothing new. For some time you have been able to personalise your Adidas trainers, buy a bespoke bottle of Famous Grouse whiskey, or design your own Converse shoes, but this is really the first time that personalisation has gone mass market.
As difficult as it is for mass consumption brands, if you get it right, it really works. It taps into our present desire as individuals to both stand out from the crowd whilst also fitting into it, enjoying the thrill that somehow something has been produced just for us or for us to share with someone we love. And, for the brand, to be associated with that feeling is priceless.
Although Starbucks created a stir with their personalised coffee cups, it is Coca-Cola that seems to have made the most obvious breakthrough. Named Coke bottles have stepped out from the supermarket shelves and created active spontaneous and engaging brand conversations. It has become a subject of real world conversations between friends; people are posting pictures of their personalised bottles on their social media sites. It is a rare example of a brand actually meeting people in their real lives rather than merely pushing a marketing message at them.
So, where do we go from here? At the moment personalisation has extended to allowing limited influence over the design of products, within the confines of certain options, or simply having your name (which of course is not unique) on something. Could more targeted personalisation be the next thing where brands offer you the chance to select the composition of products to influence their strength to suit your personal tastes.
Either way, after a campaign as seismic as the Coca-Cola name campaign, anyone looking to merely repeat the exercise risks appearing a little late to the game. The key to leveraging our desire for personal recognition is to know clearly what your customers are going to value, how and why. Research will give you the data and the insights to ensure it is conceived in a way that is right for both the brand and its customers.
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