packaging Tag

Report from the Amazon and Walmart war – the secret to success in the new battleground.

Let’s face it: It’s time to stop focusing on what you want your consumers to see and time to start focusing on what actually engages them in the real world.  Your Consumers’ Perceptions – not your own – are your brand’s reality.

Enough of the ancient metrics to measure performance!

In today’s world, why focus on unaided brand recall, tagline playback, and illustration recognition? With today’s e-commerce shoppers, nearly all brands are present before them. What do they see in your brand that engages them and separates you from your competition?

Recalling your ad or your tagline doesn’t mean consumers will buy your product. Seeing your product on the shelf is worthless if it stays on shelf. You need to generate positive engagement if you want to convert consumers. Our studies have found that an engaging e-commerce package presentation can increase its purchase by as much as 40 percent!

Seeing is not enough; you need engagement!

Had enough of paying for endcap headers that aren’t seen, POSM materials that are ignored, and free-standing displays that aren’t restocked? PTG’s nondescript truVu glasses have revealed that while certain display elements engage shoppers, most are noted, but promptly ignored. In fact, too often consumers can’t even recall why they purchased one brand over another.

Our data has shown that spring-loaded product displays discourage over 25 percent of shoppers from picking up and considering the product, simply because they don’t want the bother of having to put the packaging back! On the other hand, we’ve found that samplers and immediate tie-in discounts nearly double shopper engagement.

Measure ad engagement, not GRPs!

Have you wondered why traditional commercial skipping rates haven’t climbed? The answer is simple—because millennials and Gen-Xers don’t even bother with the remote control. They go straight to their smartphones when forced commercial breaks appear. However, over 92 percent of them will skip ad pre-rolls when given the opportunity. Their attention span for advertising hovers around six seconds.  If you haven’t engaged them by then, they’re lost, as are your ad dollars…

Stop pretending the world is perfect!

Most package testing research is simply unrealistic. Using ideal planograms, perfectly aligned product placement, and exposures with all labels clearly on display is just not how it appears in the real world. And with the test product placed in the center of the display, at eye level, and with full SKU counts?!

We’ve found that these planogram displays can seriously mislead clients and give them a false impression as to what they can expect in the real world of shopping. Only engaging packages can compete in cluttered environments, with incomplete SKU displays and placed in unfavorable shelf locations.

Knowing what really engages shoppers in real-world environments can stretch your marketing dollars multifold! Ignoring real-world consumer shifts can result in significant loss in market share. The choice is yours.

I can be reached at 201.569.4800 or dan.morris@pretesting.com.

A Better Predictor of Product Success

Many brand marketers and researchers rely upon on-shelf product noting as a key measure in predicting product and packaging success, but recent advancements in PTG’s consumer research technology have uncovered important new findings that contradict this approach.

In March 2014, PTG unveiled its truVu™ research solution that captures real life consumer experiences across a wide variety of locations including in-store, on-site and in-home. The truVu technology features discrete eyeglasses that use patent-pending auto product identification technology and built-in HD (high-definition) and HFR (high frame rate) audio and video recording capabilities that capture real life consumer experiences.

Over the past 18 months, we have analyzed over 4,000 global consumer shopping videos captured across 20 internal truVu studies that included a wide variety of product categories, and the findings dispel the idea that high product noting alone correlates with actual product purchase. PTG’s research on research shows that in a given shopping trip, an individual can note over 7,000 products, some multiple times, and yet the same individual only purchases an average of 17 products begging the question, “If high noting doesn’t strongly correlate to purchase behavior then what does?”

Additional research from PTG identified that, while noting a product is essential, consumer product engagement and close-up approach is ultimately what is required for increased purchase activity.

To conduct this phase of the research, PTG utilized its patent-pending truResponse™ solution featuring an HD and HFR on-shelf micro camera that uniquely captures consumers’ Saccadic Engagement, a biometric indicator that measures cognitive processing, and facial activity while examining in-store displays and product packaging. The unobtrusive micro cameras were strategically placed on product shelves, POP displays and LCD monitors. Using proprietary facial recognition software, the cameras automatically recorded how many people viewed the test product, approached the test product, measured their Saccadic Engagement level, and ultimately how long the shopper spent with the product.

What PTG concluded as a result of this research is measuring actual consumer engagement and product interaction, rather than simple product noting and recall, provided a much more comprehensive understanding of a product’s success and opportunities for increasing purchase.

These insights are very promising for our industry. For the first time we have identified not only a highly reliable predictor of sales success, but we also have the necessary tools to set a product up for increased success before it goes on-shelf. To learn more, please contact me at lee.weinblatt@pretesting.com.