Packaging is a valuable media channel which brands should be using to communicate added-value messaging and promotions, argues Alastair Lockhart of Savvy

As retailers seek more ways to differentiate from each other, we have seen the leading grocers take more control of their store environments. POS is highly templated, and even promotional mechanics are often under the control of retailers. At the same time, in-store compliance too often remains a source of frustration.

For brands – many already under price pressure and the threat of range rationalisation – this has made it increasingly difficult to activate effectively in-store. Granted there are exceptions where brands do create massive impact in-store, but these are typically isolated and are usually backed by substantial budgets.

With this in mind, the onus is firmly on brands to make their own media and assets work as hard as possible and to take control of the shopper journey wherever they can. There is no question that the proliferation of digital touchpoints has created new opportunities, but marketers need to take time to re-evaluate the potential of more traditional activity, in particular on-pack promotions. Indeed, I believe that the potential of on-pack promotions has never been greater.

Providing an added value on-pack is one of the most effective ways of standing out and creating an emotional connection at the point of purchase amongst a sea of price promotion offers. From the shoppers’ perspective, over half (57%) of UK them claim they are more likely to buy a particular product if it offers an added value on-pack.

From the brand’s perspective, compliance is guaranteed, brand equity creation can be placed at the centre of the campaign strategy and, crucially, on-packs create a direct relationship with the shopper and the consumer.

A skilfully crafted on-pack also has substantial potential to drive category sales and to engage shoppers at the point of purchase. And, with an insight-led customer overlay, the retailer wins too.

At its most basic level, product packaging is a brand’s primary interaction with shoppers in the store environment and can be used as a powerful means to communicate with shoppers. Consider the way that Mars has changed its brand flag to activate its sponsorship of the FA and its sister brand Snickers has altered its brand flag to reinforce its brand campaign and drive a link with the product’s target need state.

The best on-pack promotions do not sit in isolation but play an important role in a connected shopper journey.

Thanks to the application of technology, never has there been a better time for brands to make a stronger connection with consumers. On-pack campaigns can now extend beyond simple win and free gift with purchase mechanics. By using technology like Augmented Reality, brands can drive deeper engagement activating brand content on-pack and creating an on-going dialogue with consumers over a sustained period of time.

Use of digital touchpoints to enhance an on-pack and manage the shopper/consumer journey also provides a means to collect data, and subsequently measurement and valuable engagement insights.

Despite the potential of connected shopper campaigns that link on-pack promotions with digital touchpoints, it is rare that we see really good examples of this type of activity landing. In part this is because of a lack of true strategic planning by agencies, but in larger part it is a result of the way FMCG businesses are structured. Brand teams look after the brand, shopper teams look after shopper marketing and digital teams look after social channels. All too often, the communication between these teams is poor, or worse non-existent.

More and more shoppers expect a seamless, joined up journey – brands and agencies need to work more closely to make sure that experience is delivered.

Alastair Lockhart is Insight Director at creative, digital and retail marketing agency Savvy. Savvy is focused on shopper, retail and brand insight and has won multiple awards for its work. Clients include AB InBev, Mars, adidas, Pernod Ricard, Britvic and many other household names.

The post Brands need to leverage ‘owned media’ in-store appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

New packaging technology is helping promotional marketers create even greater impact on the way people shop, says Chris Baldwin from Sodexo. PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Technology is moving faster than ever with new ways to find, buy and redeem products popping up every day.

Not to state the obvious, but that makes technology more important than ever in driving a successful campaign — and brands who get on board with innovation can reap the benefits in terms of appeal and functionality. Great tech should make life easier, right?

Is there anything new about packaging technology?

According to the Savvy Cynics 2016 Consumer Promotions Survey Report, nearly 70% of people either look for, or are attracted by, promotional messages on product.

Clearly, on-pack promotions have traditionally played a huge role in promotional campaigns but the whole industry is now changing dramatically and with it come new packaging opportunities.

Retailers can tap into innovative packaging ideas, overcoming issues around space, design, and manufacturing to reach more customers and make an impact.

Augmented Reality – looking forwards, and up, and down….

A ‘newish’ way to take your conversation with customers to the next level is with Augmented Reality (AR). With AR, brands can boost an offer with loads of extra, fun content. Consumers simply use a zapcode to access more info from games – and competitions too.

Casper Thykier, co-founder of AR specialists Zappar, is a leader in AR technology. He says: “If you get the three Cs right, you get engagement and dwell time.”

In this case, the three Cs are:

• Context
• Call to Action
• Content

Thykier adds: “AR packaging is great for increasing frequency with your product and giving you rich data analytics, turning your physical products into a living, breathing multimedia channel you control.”

Some of the best examples in recent years include inspiration from traditional consumer promotions, fused with technology to appeal to the discerning 21st century shopper.

In 2011 Heinz used technology created by Zappar’s rival, Blippar, to grant access to a Heinz recipe book (which when you think about it is a surprisingly traditional offering.) By downloading the app and holding it up to a Heinz ketchup bottle, shoppers could view the recipes which appeared on pages as if they were on the bottle itself. Heinz used this to drive people to its Facebook page to access more content.

NFC Keeping in touch with your Customers

Near Field Communication or NFC for short is also allowing consumers to interact with brand packaging. By tapping their smartphones on the labels the tags transfer data between devices wirelessly and without data or internet required.

Potential brand applications are numerous, such as advertising, shopper activation and engagement and loyalty schemes.

Malibu recently used NFC technology to great effect as part of their #BecauseSummer campaign in September 2016. They encouraged consumers to tap the image of a Malibu sunset on select bottles, to gain access to exlusive content, as well as being entered into prize draws.

Let’s get personal…

Personalised experiences with brands have become easier than ever thanks in part to a rise in digital printing.

Brands such as Marmite, Coca Cola, Nutella and Vaseline have seized the opportunity to create fully bespoke personalisation for consumers and considering that the worth of the digital print for packaging market was valued at £10.5bn in 2015 and is expected to grow annually by 13.6% according to a study by Smithers Pira, I think we can agree this trend is set to explode in popularity.

Coca Cola’s ‘Share-A-Coke’ campaign which featured 100,000 of the most popular names printed on bottle labels around the world contributed to a 6.8% increase in Coca Cola’s global Facebook community, as well as boosting their index scores from 9.6 to 12.4 on the first day of the campaign alone.

So has digital printing reached its tipping point?

With so much potential in this approach to packaging, not to mention digital printing’s economic and speed to market advantages, it’s a proven way to engage with customers whilst remaining very cost effective, so it seems like a no-brainer to continue going forward.

As technology continues to advance and experiences with AR, NFC and iBeacon become more seamless, Global brands have an exciting opportunity to exploit ‘new-age packaging’ to create a new kind of customer experience that has a holistic focus on the creation of ‘marketing moments.’

Those brands able to find the right balance of brief, slick and seamless product interactions with their audience, will reap the most reward-  building trust, relationships and loyalty over time in the most fun way possible.

Chris Baldwin is Director of Consumer Programs at Sodexo. The Sodexo family, which includes the Promorati brands Protravel, Filmology, Fotorama and Entice, is Headline Sponsor of The IPM Awards 2017.

Fotorama, part of the Sodexo family has published a new eBook, How new technology is driving the promotional marketing industry, taking a closer look at the digital revolution and how it can help marketers influence shoppers.

The post Three key ways innovative packaging can boost a promotion appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Generation Z shoppers (those aged from 15 to 24) are shop-happy and digitally-savvy consumers who are open to being influenced by retailers – but they also have high expectations of them.

They are more likely than the general shopping population to think that retailers consider their age group important, while half of them believe that retailers and brands understand their age group, compared with a third of the rest of shoppers.

Danielle Pinnington, Managing Director at research company Shoppercentric, which has published the new report, says: “Generation Z are a fascinating section of the shopper population. They’ve grown up in a truly connected world and are starting to access the kind of money that means they can flex their spending power. A lot has already been written about who they are as consumers, but there’s been no particular focus for those interested in shoppers. We wanted to take a closer look at what their expectations and needs are since they may not be today’s big spenders, but they could give a real pointer to where the future of retail lies… if we take the time to listen to them.”

Other findings of the report include:

• Generation Z are more likely to say that happiness runs deeper than material possessions alone: 34% strongly agree that they want to feel they are getting good experiences and that life isn’t all about what they own, versus 28% of older shoppers.
• Generation Z shop (instore/online) at least seven times a month (rising to eight times a month amongst the men in this age group). For them, going to physical shops and malls is as much a social pursuit as it is about buying things: 52% of Generation Z said that going out shopping was a fun way to spend time with friends/family, versus 44% of adult shoppers at large.
• Ecommerce provides a welcome distraction for Generation Z, with 62% of them agreeing that online shopping is a great way to stop getting bored, compared with 53% of older shoppers. Indeed, 70% of Generation Z shoppers agree that they “often browse online with no intention of buying (versus 63% of older shoppers).
• Just over one in four Generation Z consumers (28%) say that they spend lots of time on YouTube getting ideas and recommendations, compared to 13% of older shoppers. They are also twice as likely as other shoppers to cite product displays as important when shopping instore, and 49% agree that they use the displays instore/online to give them ideas (versus 41% of the broader shopping population).
• They also use their smartphones in-store more often, with 53% agreeing that this way they can get better information to help them decide what to buy when instore, compared to 38% of older shoppers.
• Generation Z consumers love a bargain: 48% agree that they tended to buy the cheapest they could so that they could buy more things they really like. 62% are also tempted to buy if an item is on promotion versus 55% of older shoppers.
• Generation Z are also the first truly digital generation, having grown up with the Internet and the World Wide Web. Almost all of them (97%) have either a laptop or a PC, 96% have a smartphone and 63% have a tablet.
• The biggest problem for retailers is that Generation Z are Generation Returner – they have no problem buying more items than they want, and returning what they don’t want. In fact, 28% of Generation Z agree that they buy lots of things online knowing they’re going to send most back, compared with 10% of older shoppers.
• They are more impulsive and more willing to take risks with an order than older shoppers; 44% of Generation Z say that they often buy things on the internet that they hadn’t planned to purchase, versus 32% of older shoppers.
• Speedy delivery is more important to Generation Z than to older shoppers, with one in five putting same day/next day delivery in their top three most important factors for shopping online, compared with one in ten older shoppers.

Social Media plays a huge role for Generation Z, and they are more likely than older shoppers to be connecting beyond their social groups of family and friends or even like-minded groups, to retailers or brands. Specifically:

• 79% of Generation Z use Facebook vs 66% of older shoppers; 24% regularly use it to contact retailers or brands.
• 50% of Generation Z use Instagram vs 17% of older shoppers; 41% regularly use it to contact retailers or brands.
• 49% of Generation Z use YouTube vs 27% of older shoppers; 32% regularly use it to contact retailers or brands.
• 41% of Generation Z use Twitter vs 26% of older shoppers; 48% regularly use it to contact retailers or brands.

Pinnington observes: “We’re all aware that Generation Z are easily bored and have a very short attention span, but on the flipside, they have great confidence and a terrific support system provided by social media which helps them to manage risk when they’re choosing what to do and what to buy. Plus they’re aware that retailers are interested in them and that they’re worth getting to know – this is in stark contrast to how many older shoppers feel.”

She concludes: “Generation Z know that they’re being courted, so it stands to reason that they expect to be impressed before they part with their cash. This apparent self-assurance is important because it will set a high bar against which retailers and brands will be judged moving forwards. Each touchpoint with these shoppers needs to be a positive experience and reflective of the brands’ tone of voice and values whilst remembering that this is a generation that enjoys shopping, so retailers will need to deliver to that brief and make it fun both instore and online.”

The post Retailers dismiss Gen Z shoppers at their peril! appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Technological advances mean shopper marketing has broken out of the confines of the retail environment and can be found all around us, driving massively increased investment in the sectors, which is becoming one of the key areas for promotional marketing spend.

This is the conclusion of a webinar, Shopper Marketing Amplified, hosted by Carey Trevill, Managing Director of the UK’s Institute of Promotional Marketing and featuring contributions from marketing technology specialists Snipp! Interactive and retail and shopper marketing experts TPN.

The webinar, which took place at the end of November 2015, can be viewed on YouTube.

Camille Kennedy, Senior Director of Marketing at Snipp Interactive, pointed out that “spend on Shopper Marketing in the US has doubled over the past two years. A large proportion of that growth has been due to digital and mobile.” Kennedy added that research shows that “more than half of purchasing decisions are happening outside the store – but 30% are still happening in-store.”

Justin Stephenson, Managing Director, TPN Retail Marketing, focused on the changing role of Shopper Marketing in the UK, where it is becoming a key weapon in the marketer’s armoury as the retail landscape goes through massive changes.

Stephenson discussed the impact of the economy, changing consumer shopping behaviour and the introduction of a range of new retail formats. Shoppers now shop more often but are more purposeful in their ‘missions’.

He pointed out that supermarkets’ ‘clean floor’ policies have significantly reduced brands’ opportunities to create brand engagement with consumers. As a result, digital marketing, particularly involving content, has become more important. “Content becomes increasingly more important. Content that is accessible will change the way shoppers engage with brands through different digital media, such as social media.”

Snipp’s Camille Kennedy endorsed this point, saying that in the US, 92% of shoppers “say they are making decisions because of social media.” Retailer apps are becoming incredibly important in the in-store environment, she added.

The hour-long webinar covers a range of topics including the role of Shopper Marketing; differences between the US and UK retail landscape; the impact of social media; the rise of mobile; e-commerce and m-commerce; loyalty; and data collection and measuring ROI.

Click here to view the webinar on YouTube.

The post Webinar: Shopper Marketing Amplified appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Almost nine in 10 UK consumers will take advantage of a promotional offer when doing their Christmas grocery shopping this year, according to new research.

A survey conducted on behalf of Valassis Limited, the UK’s largest coupon and voucher services provider, found that:

• 88% of shoppers might be tempted to shop away from their main supermarket, based on a suitable promotion;
• 87% of shoppers will use a promotional offer when grocery shopping this Christmas season;
• 48% of shoppers might be persuaded to switch supermarkets based on a “two- for-one” offer; and
• 47% will use three or more mechanics.

Charles D’Oyly, Valassis’ Managing Director, says: “Supermarket loyalty is being challenged by consumers in search of the best deal and the rise of deep discounters is a noticeable trend in the UK grocery market.”

Deep discounters have grown UK market share steadily since 2011 and are in a position to attract more shoppers this shopping season. According to the 2,000 consumers surveyed, 28% said they are more likely to shop at deep discounters this season.

Shoppers cited an increased cost of living and increased cost of food as the two top driving factors impacting their desire to seek out promotions. The favoured consumer money-saving mechanic this Christmas is multi-purchase-based offers (two-for-one deals) followed by “everyday low price promises.”

These findings are based on an online survey of 2,000 nationally representative adults, conducted by GfK NOP from 10th – 13th November 2015.

The post Valassis: shoppers hungry for Xmas promos appeared first on IPM Bitesize.