ISSUE NO. 7

From the grocery list to the dinner table:

The food purchase path and what brands do at every step

JWT PERSPECTIVES ON FOODS

As we all know, the consumer goes through various stages, in his journey to buy a product, depending on the category.

In some cases, he takes months to give in to buying a car, a bike or a holiday

package. Where as, a habitual purchase like a detergent or tooth paste is usually over in a minute or less.

In this edition of Food For Thought, we stop for a few moments to take a look at

what F&B brands do at every stage of the buying cycle.

The JWT Consumer Buying System

A stimulus that arouses awareness

of a need.

A review of options that can fulfill a need.

Concludes with a decision to enter a category.

A review of information

sources regarding options within a

category.

Preference for a specific brand – based on perceived

brand discriminators.

The act of buying and paying for a product.

The degree of satisfaction that

determines likelihood of repeat

purchase.

Time of day as trigger Accompaniment as trigger

Triggering purchase by associating with 4 pm hunger

Triggering purchase by associating milk with

consumption of cookies.

This stage gets the consumer thinking about a purchase. Therefore, many brands establish an association with a time of day or year, highlight an upcoming event or occasion, or even appeal to their senses to make the consumer feel the need for their product.

Triggering consumption during an untapped fourth

day part – 2 to 5 a.m.

New time of day

Age as trigger

Triggering use of MFDs among women with an age specific need

Upcoming social event

Triggering purchase by suggesting weight loss

prior to the wedding season

Dunkin Donuts (DD) in Seoul installed devices in buses that released the aroma of DD coffee whenever the jingle of Dunkin Donuts played on the radio. The M&M World store in London added the smell of chocolate in their store to heighten temptation.

Sensory Appeal: Smell

Dabur Honey instead of sugar

Brands have leveraged this stage by defining/ redefining the frame of reference, positioning their products as replacement for other products, thereby getting into consumer’s consideration set, leading to behavioural change .

NutriChoice Digestive instead of a heavy snack

Sugar Free instead of sugar

Chocolates instead of mithai

Cheese sauce for vegetables Smoking Replacement

In this stage, people look for information about the brand and its alternatives. And it has been revolutionised by the internet. The accessibility of user reviews, pricing comparison, and competitor information has made it much easier to acquire information about products. In some cases, the entire search process has shifted online.

Mushrooming of websites that aid search & comparison

Parenting websites feature comparison charts to guide consumers through health drinks and food choices for kids.

Nature’s Basket has special section for healthy eating, cooking tips, food facts, food pairing ideas and a food blog that guides consumers.

Search Phase Case Study: Safeway’s ‘Discover What’s New’ Campaign

Safeway’s research discovered that 84% consumers feel purchasing new products as one of the "most interesting" elements of the shopping experience. However, Safeway was losing out on this as online vendors like Amazon could add goods to their inventory in days, whereas bricks-and-mortar chains take up to 12 weeks. To out do this, Safeway decided to put the consumer in ‘Discovery Mode’ as they are likely to add more products to their baskets in this mode, than when they are shopping with a set mission. Safeway launched the ‘Discover What’s New’ campaign, selling brand new products, with separate label that call outs their newness. Since the launch of the campaign in 2012, until 2014, Safeway has launched close to 550 items, all of them achieving the 2:1 ROI mark.

What it has Heritage/Provenance

This is the stage of brand preference and is the focus of all positioning and advertising. Reasons for choosing a brand over another go all the way through the brand ladder – heritage, expertise, what it has, how its made, what it is for, who it is for, how it makes you feel, and the top of the ladder life value. Value and aspiration, functional and emotional, user segment and user imagery, this is the battlefield, and has already made a place in the minds of consumers before they walk into the shop.

How it’s made

What it’s for How it makes you feel Who it’s for

Value- What it stands for

In store signage, displays, store environments Point of sale installation

To establish that Tropicana ‘Twisters’ have similar percentage of water as the fruits they are made of, the brand used point-of-sale installation with software that recognizes different fruits and their water content.

This is the stage of buying the product/service. This can be in-store, on-line, on the telephone . The shop environment, sales staff, promotions and trials play an important role in this stage.

Android Wear payment app for Starbucks has made paying for coffee even more easy, i.e. just with a flick of a the wrist. The wrist band app is connected to a Starbucks card which automatically projects a bar code that can be scanned to pay. Forget about the hassle of taking a wallet out to pay through cash/ card, with this wearable app one does not even have to take out one’s phone.

In Indonesia, there is an acute shortage of small currency because of which retailers often give consumers candies in place of money. To prevent this, McDonald’s made it’s own small currency which could be used at the next McDonald’s purchase.

A grocery store in South Korea revolutionized grocery shopping for consumers by creating an impression of a grocery store at the metro station, a place where people have time to kill. Consumers simply had to scan the bar code of a products through their phones. The products were delivered to their home automatically.

Delight & Engage Even After Purchase

To connect people in the real world and to give them personalized experiences, Coke swapped its logo with 150 common names in Australia and sold at retail outlets. Each name had a special song to be downloaded from Coke’s FB page.

Dominos employs Delivery Service Guarantee of 30 Minutes or Free McDonalds uses 'One Minute Service' even during peak business hours. The idea is to deliver 'Good Food - Fast!'

The Buying System does not end with purchase. In fact, the experience of using a product or service, the post purchase experience and the conversations that then take place afterwards are becoming more important than ever before.

In 2013, Budweiser launched a campaign called ‘Buddy Cup’, which employed beer glasses with a built-in chips that integrated with Facebook. Each time two people toasted using the new beer glass – the ‘Buddy Cup’ – they instantly became friends online via Facebook. The campaign goal was to enhance brand activation and increase interaction between Budweiser consumers attending Budweiser’s sponsored parties, concerts and festivals.

In 2013 KFC U.S., created KFC Go Cups, a snack item that would fit into most of the car cup holders. The cup had wider rim to fit the chicken, which is separated from the potato wedges with a divider. This portable packaging made one handed snacking an easy and convenient affair.

Delight & Engage Even After Purchase

Indigo’s specially designed merchandise used to serve food items, made as collectable items, ensure that the Indigo experience lingers on in the consumer’s life. Simply having Indigo merchandise around one is a constant exposure to the brand and it’s identity.

Coke’s Happy Caps initiative in Vietnam (2014) reinforces the brand promise of ‘Open Happiness’ even after the consumption of the product. Thus, the experience of happiness lingers on for longer.

Delight & Engage Even After Purchase

Social Networking Sites and Online Reviews- New Mediums for Posting Post Purchase Experiences

With the rise of the Foodie lifestyle and the popularity of new image-based social platforms - foodies today are using food imagery, to enrich their own lives and display their online personas. This is yet another way for a food brands to offer an unforgettable experience to consumers which they document and share online.

So, depending on the task at hand for the brand, different stages could inspire different strategies.

Brands creating new categories or increasing usage would have to

trigger new consumption needs.

While those looking to instigate new behaviors might enter the

consumer’s consideration set by positioning products as replacements for others.

This stage also helps with ideas to increase frequency or

depth of consumption by associating with new occasions or directly taking on competition.

In the age of the super informed consumer concepts like

Native Advertising are revolutionizing the reach of branded content, infiltrating the search

stage quite stealthily.

While brand experience is going way beyond just quality in pack to letting consumers build memories using the brand, enabling brand play, putting “incomplete ideas” out there thereby

getting consumers to spend more time with the brand.