On Monday May 20th, the FDA finalized their proposal to change Nutrition Facts labels for packaged goods. Considering that these rules haven’t changed for over two decades, I was pleased to hear the Nutrition Facts label is finally getting a makeover. Americans are changing their views of nutrition and they’re paying closer attention to food labels, with 47% saying they check ingredient lists when deciding what to purchase. According to the IFIC’s 2016 Food and Health Survey, people have less healthful views of: Added sugars Low-calorie sweeteners Enriched refined grains Saturated fat Alternately, people have more positive views of: Natural sugars (like Stevia) Whole grains Protein from plant sources Here is an overview of the proposed changes to the Nutrition Facts label: Total calories, servings per container and serving size will be emphasized more with larger, bold font. A separate line for “Added Sugars” will be added. With the current NFP, you can’t tell what sugar is naturally occurring versus what has been added by the manufacturer. Serving sizes will reflect what people usually eat or drink. For example, if someone buys a 20-ounce bottle of soda they…
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Brand Rejuvenation Case Study: Faultless Starch
I recently attended an AMAKC event featuring Faultless Starch and MBB+ Agency where they presented a case study of brand rejuvenation. Faced with declining starch usage due to changing fashion trends, Faultless Starch approached MBB+ agency to help them rejuvenate their brand. In a nutshell, here’s what they did. First, Faultless hired a company to research what kind of people frequently use starch for ironing. They looked up demographics (quantitative data) and opinions/ feelings of starch users (qualitative data). Research showed their audience was typically male, white-collar workers, mostly concentrated in the southern regions of the U.S. Some thoughts they heard from starch users included “When I iron, I have a sense of pride knowing I look my best”, “I feel better about myself when my clothes are starched” and “Looking well-put together gives me an edge at work.” Faultless took this research to MBB+ and asked them to develop a marketing campaign that would increase sales of Faultless Premium starch. MBB+ started by finding Faultless’s audience and crafting a message to connected with their audience. They decided to use a brand advocate – “someone who could share their…
Building a Culture of Innovation
I recently attended an AMAKC event where Pat McGauley presented how Anheuser-Busch created the Lime-A-Rita family of flavored beers and built them into a billion dollar brand. The culture of innovation at Anheuser-Busch was vital to the success of the Lime-A-Rita brand. Here are a few words of advice from Pat McGauley on building a culture of innovation: Before you start innovating or renovating, you need to have a strategy in place. If you work at it you’ll learn more from what you screw up at than what you succeed at. When a product is to fix a company problem, not a consumer one, it doesn’t usually work. Learn from previous failures. Invest before you need it – take risks! Renew interest by being unexpected. Scale up quickly once you’ve got a winner. Retailers should foster a culture of innovation with their employees if they want their brand to flourish in today’s competitive marketplace. Businesses that fail to innovate may risk losing ground to competitors, losing key staff, or operating inefficiently. People who want to innovate have different characteristics; they want to create,…
The Future of Retail Technology
What does the future hold for retailer technology? Drone-based delivery, self-driving trucks, virtual reality shopping, invisible barcodes and more. Every Thursday the Advancing Retail team discusses the current trends in retail technology. On January 14th most of their time was spent talking about possibilities that could occur in the future, near or far, through technological advancement. Drone-based delivery As more grocery retailers make online shopping available to customers, the potential for delivery by drones becomes increasingly likely. Google, Amazon.com and Walmart are racing to develop drones for product delivery. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration should have rules finalized for commercial drone operation within the year. NASA is working closely with 14 companies to create a low-level air-traffic system to guide drones and prevent collisions. Before long, customers will be able to order their groceries online and have them delivered to their homes via drone delivery. Self-driving trucks Self-driving, autonomous semi trucks are being piloted in Nevada, one of 4 states that have approved licensing for autonomous vehicles. A driver will still be present to monitor but the vehicle will take over the…
Social Monitoring Case Study: Sickweather
Social media monitoring is a powerful tool and every grocery retailer should be using it. People are talking about your store on social media, whether your store has an online presence or not, so it’s important to monitor those conversations so you can react when necessary. Plus there are many free social monitoring tools available online so it doesn’t have to cost you a dime. What is social media monitoring? Actively watching and listening to social media channels for information about a company or organization (Lexicon). Social monitoring allows business owners to track what consumers are saying about their brands, services and actions. Businesses can react to these conversations and interact with consumers on their social media platforms. Case Study: Sickweather I recently attended Social Media Club of Kansas City’s December breakfast, which focused on social monitoring. The presenter, Graham Dodge, is the CEO of Sickweather, a company that uses social monitoring to track sickness and give people real time data about illnesses near them and through out the U.S. Sickweather scans social media sites (like Facebook and Twitter) for people…
User Generated Content: Letting Your Customers Be The Voice For Your Brand
This week I attended AMAKC’s Multimedia Bits & Bites Series at the Cerner Innovation Campus. During one of the sessions we discussed one of the best ways to create good content: inviting your customers to create the content for your brand. In the marketing world this method is called user generated content or UGC, and it’s creating big returns for many companies, especially in the food and beverage industry. User generated content is any form of content such as video, blogs, digital images, discussion posts, audio files, and other forms of media created by consumers of a service or product that is publicly available to other users, often via social media sites. If your company is not already utilizing UGC you should seriously consider adding it. People of all generations trust opinions from consumers more than what brands say about themselves. According to a survey by The Center for Generational Kinetics, 51% of Americans trust UGC more than other information on a company website (16%) or news articles about the company (14%) when looking for information about a brand, product, or service. UGC is 35% more memorable…
The Inbound Marketing Revolution
The old marketing playbook is broken. 86% of people skip TV ads 91% unsubscribe from emails 44% of direct mail is never opened 200 million people on the Do Not Call list So how should marketers reach customers? Online. 86% of business to consumer purchases start with an online search. If your website has quality content that includes searchable key words on a responsive template, your website will be at the top of Google searches. I recently attended a Digital Marketing Summit hosted by the KU Business School and the keynote speaker, Dan Tyre of Hubspot, explained the revolution of inbound marketing. WHAT DOES INBOUND MEAN? Inbound is a data driven, holistic approach that allows you to turn strangers into long-term customers. You create content that helps people solve their problems. THE INBOUND METHODOLOGY – The best way to turn strangers into customers. Attract – 86% of business to consumer purchases start with an online search, so your website has to be your best sales person. Publish content that can be searched in Google using key words. This will drive…
Coffee With CART: 9/24 Recap
Social media is great for independent retailers because it gives them the opportunity to compete with big chains on an equal playing field. Last week on Coffee With CART, the Advancing Retail team talked about social media, online shopping, and how these two fields are connected in the retail industry. Facebook recently improved its “Pages” features to help businesses strengthen their mobile presence. They made call-to-action buttons more prominent and added sections for businesses to showcase information relevant to consumers. Facebook ads are bridging the gap between the ad and the call to action (purchase). The two new Pages sections on Facebook are “Shop” and “Services”. The Shop tab allows users to bring retail products to the front of the Page and the Services tab allows businesses to showcase their offerings at the top. For example, a retailer can highlight their pharmacy, floral department, or other offerings in this section. Facebook is letting certain stores sell their products directly through the social network via a “buy” button on their Pages, but it is still testing its “shop section.” In early June, Instagram launched ads with…
Marketing to Millennials as a Grocery Retailer
By 2017, Millennials will have more spending power than any other age group. For retailers, catering to Millennials is critical because they are setting the agenda for the food retailing industry. So what factors influence Millennials’ purchasing decisions? Millennials shop for low prices. Millennials are more in debt than any other generation. We’re paying off massive college loans, so saving money and budgeting is important to us. 85% of Millennials will change brands based on price and 56% will switch brands to save money off coupons. Convenient location is a major factor for Millennials as most shop at the grocery store closest to their residence or place of work. Very few Millennials will go out of their way to shop at a particular grocery store that is not located nearby. Millennials spend an average of 3 hours and 34 minutes browsing the Internet per day, so a retailer’s web presence is important. Not only should you have a website for your store, you should have a good website with an interactive weekly ad, shopping list, coupons, recipes, and more. Retailers should also…
Cause Marketing: A Savvy Business Strategy
It is no secret that consumers expect retailers and brands to support social and environmental issues. When making purchasing decisions, U.S. consumers consider businesses’ involvement in social issues as a differentiating factor. The 2013 Cone Communications Social Impact Study is the latest in Cone’s 20-year analysis of Americans’attitudes, perceptions and behaviors around corporate support of social and environmental issues. Here are a few facts to consider: 93% of U.S. consumers say that when a company supports a cause, they have a more positive image of the company (up from 85% in 2010 and 84% in 1993). 90% of Americans say they would be more loyal to companies that back causes. 89% of consumers would switch brands to one that is associated with a good cause, given similar price and quality. – 2013 Cone Communications Social Impact Study Cause remains an undeniable consumer demand and a savvy business strategy. Cause marketing helps to increase sales and improve customer loyalty. When it comes to supporting a cause or issue that is important to the community, AWG retailers have multiple options. APPLES FOR THE…