Category: Blog

Don’t Claim Your Product is ‘Better’ — Do This Instead

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Don’t Claim Your Product is ‘Better’ — Do This Instead

May 26, 2021

Written By: The GRO Agency

Imagine your CPG brand is putting out a new product and it’s your job to come up with a way to communicate its claims so it stands out and attracts shoppers. As you’re ideating positioning strategies, would you rather promote a new product that’s better than the competition or different from the competition?

Most people’s gut instinct is to say better. Meaning, they’d rather create strategies for products that are better, not different. After all, who doesn’t want to be better? But here’s the problem: It’s nearly impossible to demonstrate product superiority to consumers.

Put simply, being better isn’t enough.

We’ll show you how top CPG brands have made a lasting impact in their categories by asserting difference and uniqueness — not outright superiority. And how, at the end of the day, a different product is a better product.

Why Product Superiority Claims Fail

There’s a lot that can go wrong if you focus on superiority instead of difference. Consider the following:

Better Is Incremental

Even products that are genuinely better than others are only better by a little bit. For example, how much better can one boxed mac and cheese really be from another?

What’s more, consumers aren’t generally taste testing multiple brands of mac and cheese at the same time. So again, even if your mac and cheese is better, that’s lost on consumers without a side-by-side comparison.

Better Is Subjective

Let’s take our mac and cheese example a step further.

For fun, some friends do a boxed mac and cheese showdown. They really are going to experience your product and the competition’s simultaneously.

But here’s the thing: Those friends will have varying opinions on which is the better mac and cheese. One might like the white cheddar kind while another prefers Oompa Loompa orange. Why? Because betterness is 100% subjective.

You might think our mac and cheese example is trite. But opinions run rampant these days thanks to our digital environment. Social media fights have emerged in brands’ comment sections for less serious offenses than mac and cheese preference.

Going with a ‘better’ claim leaves you vulnerable to backlash from consumers who flatly disagree. And you can’t really defend yourself since, again, better is opinion-based.

Better Is Difficult to Defend

Internet trolls aren’t the only ones who will demand evidence of your product’s superiority.

Imagine your team put together an ad campaign focused on your ‘better’ claim. The people who are considering running your ad (say TV network or magazine execs) will want to cover their butts by assuring your ad isn’t false advertising — asserting superiority without merit.

How will you prove to those execs that your product really is better? Do you honestly have that kind of evidence?

Better Has No Staying Power

If you center a ‘better’ claim, you’ll probably find yourself in a game of one-upmanship with your competitors, constantly fighting as they improve their product to match yours.

On the other hand, if you innovate a true difference in your category, you’ll make a lasting category-wide splash. Why? Because even if competitors attempt to emulate your unique claim, your brand will live on as the first to be different in consumers’ minds. And that kind of loyalty and brand association is priceless.

Just think about classically different brands in other industries, like Apple and Volkswagen. It’s not that others haven’t created comparable software and cars — they have — it’s that those brands were first to be different in their respective spaces and consumers have not forgotten. It’s become part of their legacy.

The Power of Selling Product Difference

Hopefully you realize it’s not enough to claim your product is better. Better is subjective and open for debate. Instead, you have to point out how your product is different.

How does this work in real life?

If your R&D guy comes to you saying he’s thought up a genius, better product for you to position in the market, you ask things like, “Why is it better?” And when you start in on that line of questioning, you land on differentiators. The new product is better because it’s fresher, or its ingredients are sourced naturally, or it’s packaged uniquely. It’s these differentiators that you take to market and advertise, not its obscure betterness.

No one wants to be told a product’s better. They want to be shown. Highlighting difference provides evidence to consumers that your product is actually better. And, importantly, consumers decide it’s better without you shoving it in their faces.

Let’s sum it up. You work your tail off to position and market your product’s differentiators. With any luck, your product becomes better in consumers’ minds because of the differences you’ve stated.

Hence why, ultimately, different is better.

CPG Brands Doing Difference Right

We just got done telling you how important it is to showcase your differentiators. How about we take our own advice and show you some brands doing this ‘different not better’ thing right?

Tropicana’s Freshness Differentiator

The orange juice company famously flunked a packaging makeover, but there’s much to be celebrated about Tropicana, too. They were the first notable juice company to ship fresh, never frozen product from Florida to the rest of the states.

Importantly, Tropicana doesn’t market to consumers that their product is better outright. Instead, they zero in on difference — fresh-squeezed, not from concentrate, 100% juice, and so on. It doesn’t take an astute shopper to make the leap from fresh to better. Still, Tropicana smartly leans on their differentiators to show consumers that they’re better, not tell them. Then, consumers can (and have, judging by the brand’s success) make up their own minds.

Even though other brands have caught onto their “not from concentrate” ways, Tropicana will always be top of mind when consumers think of fresh-squeezed juice. They were the originals.

SC Johnson’s Edge Shave Cream Differentiator

SC Johnson revolutionized shave cream. Before SC Johnson’s Edge hit the market, shave cream was a soapy lather reminiscent of a barber shop shave. It softened the hair follicles and made them plumper, therefore easier to cut for a closer shave. But, Edge appeared on the scene with a totally different story. And, a new formulation: gel. They developed the revolutionary gel formula to lubricate the skin and minimize irritation. This point of differentiation allowed them to claim a smoother shave, rather than a closer shave. They rode the difference between closer and smoother all the way to market leadership. This difference became better in the consumer’s mind.

Much like Tropicana, others have caught up with SC Johnson. They’re no longer the only gel shave cream on the shelf. But, again, because they were innovative and first, they changed the way consumer’s relate to shave cream. Today all front line shave preparations are gel formulations and shave foams are relegated to a nostalgic throwback

How NOT to Screw Up Your Food Brand’s Packaging Redesign

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How NOT to Screw Up Your Food Brand’s Packaging Redesign

May 18, 2021

Written By: The GRO Agency

Every CPG company has to redesign their packaging from time to time. Maybe you’re pivoting the focus of your claims, trying to distinguish your brand in an increasingly crowded category, attempting cohesion across product lines, or simply updating an outdated aesthetic.

No matter the reason, redesigning is always a substantial investment. And it’ll cost even more in both time and money if you screw it up, confusing — or worse — upsetting your loyal customers. You might not get the lift you expect from a redesign gone wrong. Or, worst case scenario, you have to go back to the drawing board.

Luckily, there are some common pitfalls you can look out for as you take on a packaging redesign project for your food and bev brand.

But first, let’s consider what could go right.

The Benefits of a Successful Food Packaging Redesign

While it’s true there are risks associated with tackling a packaging redesign, it’s vital to brand health. And, when done right, a redesign can:

  • Expand your audience. If your target consumer has been aging alongside your aesthetic, a packaging refresh could attract younger generations who will eventually have more spending power.
  • Increase sales and, therefore, market share. Better packaging equals more customers equals more sales equals larger market share. Need we say more?
  • Win you more shelf space and distribution. A more successful brand as a result of new, killer packaging often motivates stores to give you more shelf space. For that same reason, a good redesign could mean added distribution, too.
  • Revitalize digital engagement. The internet, and especially social media, are reliant on imagery. If you now have a modern, compelling package to promote, you just might garner likes, shares, comments, and (ultimately) customers.
  • Improve your products’ shopability. Shopability refers to how easy (or hard) it is for consumers to find your brand as a whole, but also find the product within your line up that most closely meets their needs. Clear, compelling, attractive packaging will make it easier for your customers to shop for your product.

All of these redesign perks add up to increased brand equity. Meaning, because of your fresh image, consumers can better bond with your brand.

4 Common Packaging Redesign Pitfalls

You’re committed to a redesign. You know your packaging needs it, and you’re loving the possible benefits. Before you dive in head first, there are four potential pitfalls you should look out for.

These pitfalls are illustrated and summed up well by an example of a CPG refresh gone wrong — Tropicana.

In 2009, Tropicana changed their packaging drastically. Everything was new — the logo, the imagery, the font, the colors. And their loyal customer base rallied against the brand. It was sort of epic. Tropicana sales plummeted, and they eventually removed all of the new product from shelves. Think of the money — and brand equity — they lost.

Now, let’s look at how you can avoid Tropicana’s mistakes and other common packaging redesign blunders.

1. Doing Away with Every Existing Packaging Element

Perhaps the biggest mistake Tropicana made was completely departing from the elements of their packaging that were recognizable and beloved by their most ardent customers.

The lesson? Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

As you’re redesigning your packaging, keep the aspects that people love. Shoppers should still be able to effortlessly pick out your brand on the shelf despite changes.

2. Diluting Your Brand’s Quirks on Your Fresh Packaging

It’s especially important not to do away entirely with your brand’s unique traits.

One of the (many) complaints consumers lodged against Tropicana back in 2009 was that their new packaging looked like a generic, private label orange juice. It wasn’t distinguishable or authentically Tropicana anymore.

Would we still recognize and love Honey Nut Cheerios without the goofy bumble bee? What’s Kool-Aid without the red pitcher dude? And god forbid Campbell’s ever changed their cans from red to blue.

The message here is to safeguard what makes your brand special through any and all packaging redesigns.

3. Blindly Following Your Category’s Packaging Trends

At any given time, there are a lot of cool design trends circulating your CPG category. But beware: Not every trend is relevant or authentic to your brand. A redesign complete with all the trendiest elements might make your brand feel young and hip for a hot second, but, once that trend fades, you’ll be no different from your competition.

Worse yet, large CPGs with firmly established brands run the risk of coming off as inauthentic for blindly jumping on the bandwagon of one trend or another. And consumers can spot fakeness miles away.

Sometimes, a trend really does fit your style. In that case, by all means incorporate it into your next packaging redesign. Maybe you’re a two-ingredient energy bite company and minimalism is the thing in your category. That aligns with your mission. Go for it.

The bottom line? It’s all about following trends for the right reasons, not because it seems cool in the moment.

4. Making Changes to Your New Design That Go Unnoticed

This last redesign pitfall might seem contradictory to the first, but it’s important enough to mention nonetheless. Departing too completely from your current packaging is definitely a mistake. You’ll confuse and perhaps anger your consumers (a la Tropicana).

But, believe it or not, there’s also such a thing as not enough change during a packaging redesign. In fact, packaging redesigns have gone totally unnoticed before. What a waste of money if your consumer doesn’t even recognize that you’ve made a change!

Designers might notice every little shift, but look at your new packaging from an outsider’s perspective. Will they notice small tweaks? Probably not.

Tips to Get Your CPGs Packaging Redesign Right

We’ve given you a lot of things to avoid during a packaging redesign. How about some tools that can help you do it right?

  • Conduct consumer research if at all possible. You need to know which brand elements your consumers love so you can keep them. You also need to know what needs to go. When you ask consumers outright, you’re getting real information you can use to redesign to their stated preferences.
  • Consider combining revolutionary and evolutionary design. Revolutionary design entails starting from scratch, and evolutionary means making iterative changes based on what’s already there. Too much revolutionary change alienates consumers, and too much evolutionary change goes unnoticed. You need a healthy balance of both for a successful packaging redesign.
  • Base your redesign on specific business drivers. For instance, if you need a refresh because your brand isn’t as shopable as it could be, that’ll inform the changes you make to your packaging. Don’t change something for the sake of changing it; change it because it aligns with the ultimate goal of your redesign.

Last thing: Packaging redesign is difficult.

Your CPG desperately wants the boon a brand refresh can give you, but you’re also afraid of doing it wrong. The good news? With these pitfalls in mind and an eye toward what could go right, the work of a packaging redesign will be so worth it.

Level Up Your Consumer Research Game with AI-Driven Personality Data

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Level Up Your Consumer Research Game with AI-Driven Personality Data

May 11, 2021

Written By: The GRO Agency

Savvy marketers have been doing the work to understand their consumers for as long as marketing has been a profession.

Why? Because they know they can leverage consumer understanding to inform their marketing activities and forge connections between their brands and customers. And strong brand/customer connection means more sales, brand equity, and overall company growth.

It’s the stuff of marketers’ dreams.

Even though marketers have long searched for consumer understanding, it hasn’t always been as accessible as it is today. New artificial intelligence-driven technologies and social media methods are changing the consumer research game. You can now grasp your target audiences’ personality traits, and personality is the single strongest predictor of desire.

Better yet, these new consumer research methods don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars. Mid-sized CPGs can finally afford data previously reserved for food and bev industry giants.

Think of what this level of consumer understanding could mean for your CPG company.

The Problem with Demographics

Using demographics to segment and market to audiences has been the industry standard for quite some time. But demographic data points — like marital status, age, income, and so on — are way too broad.

Imagine you’re creating a new packaged food item and your research suggests that women in their 30s are your target audience. That’s literally millions of people. What about the many variables between women in their 30s, like culture and stage of life?

Consumers may all look the same through the lens of their demographics, but that’s simply too limited a perspective.

Leverage Psychographics for Deeper Consumer Understanding

Despite limitations, demographics aren’t all bad. And perhaps they were enough when consumers were mainly concerned with a product’s label. But today’s consumers demand more. Again, it’s all about that connection. They want an emotional, human factor in their products, and they want their products to share their value systems.

That’s why you need psychographics, too.

Basically, psychographics describe someone’s personality traits and psychological attributes. Segmenting your audience by psychographics means speaking to their desires, needs, problems, and interests — instead of just their surface-level identifiers.

Put another way, demographics are one-dimensional and psychographics are multidimensional. Psychographics color otherwise flat demographic data.

Data Supports the Validity of Personality-Driven Marketing

As mentioned previously, personality predicts desire, and desire predicts purchasing decisions. That’s because personality is composed of unconscious needs or drives — the core of human motivation.

This all sounds good, right? But why should you care about personality traits in practice?

Studies prove that people respond more favorably to messages tailored to their unique personalities. In fact, in one study, matching a marketing message to a consumer’s personality resulted in up to 40% more clicks and up to 50% more purchases.

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Typical Personas Are Too Much Guesswork

Say you have personality trait data. You’re convinced of its value. What should you do with it?

For one, apply it to your existing personas.

Your team is likely accustomed to using personas — or semi-fictional representations of your customers — in your work. The problem is that these personas aren’t as accurate as they could be. Creative types might whip them up using a combination of qualitative research and, well, educated guesses. Then, ‘Maggie the Stay at Home Mom’ is born, complete with a stock photo headshot.

Scientifically-Backed Personality Traits Bring Personas to Life

While you might get pretty close to a Maggie-type’s real-world characteristics this way, think of the depth scientifically-backed personality data adds.

When you know the personalities of your target consumers for sure (you’re not just taking your best guess), you can more precisely match your messaging to those traits. You can also use that data to inform design decisions, media placements, influencer marketing, and even new product launches. The applications are nearly limitless.

How to Get Personality Data — and What to Do with It

At this point, you’re probably wondering how you attain personality trait data. Typically, a third-party research partner completes the work. The researcher’s process is as follows:

  1. Use AI-driven tech to analyze social media profiles that fit a certain characterization. If they’re trying to recruit millennial moms, for example, they’d search for public posts about motherhood from moms who fit that target age.
  2. Recruit people who are in the millennial moms group to participate in the study.
  3. The tech then scrapes the participants’ public social media text and runs that data through an algorithm.
  4. The algorithm spits out personality traits and groupings for those participants based on their words from their own social media profiles.

At the end of the process, you’re left with data pointing to common personality traits among your target audience. The common model applies the “Big 5” personality traits to your group — extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism — along with sub personality traits, too.

Let’s take an example in action. According to the hypothetical data in our example, millennial moms are generally high on openness. Through well-established academic research, we know that people with high openness are more likely to try new things. They’re motivated by novelty. Perfect for the food and beverage industry, a person with high openness tends to be a foodie.

All of this means that, when you’re marketing to high openness individuals, you might:

  • Highlight newness during a product launch
  • Emphasize ingredients, nutrients, source quality, etc. to appeal to their discerning food-lover side

The Implications of AI-Driven Market Research

It might seem invasive to target consumers based on their personality traits. But we’re never manipulating our audiences. In reality, this new technology allows us to be more respectful of everyone’s individuality than too-broad demographics ever could.

With personality trait data in hand, you can understand your customers authentically and provide them with products that meet their stated needs on their own terms.

4 Tactics to Reveal Your Next Big Product Idea

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4 Tactics to Reveal Your Next Big Product Idea

April 27, 2021

Written By: The GRO Agency

You know you need to come up with new product ideas to stay ahead of your competition, but innovating isn’t easy.

For large CPGs, the pressure to fight back against legacy competitors and fresh new brands to maintain market share makes new product ideation all the more important — and difficult.

Not to mention that consumers have higher expectations than ever before when it comes to the food and beverage industry. Smart innovation is non-negotiable because innovation in and of itself just isn’t enough.

Unfortunately, there’s no prescribed method that magically yields new product ideas. But you wouldn’t be reading this if there were, right? What we do have are four tactics to get you out of the weeds of your brand and into the minds of consumers to reveal your next smash-hit product.

1. Leverage AI-Driven Insights and Social Listening to Quickly Inform Consumer-Centric Ideas

A direct connection to the consumer is key to remaining relevant in the food and beverage industry. You can’t create successful new products if you have no idea what matters to the people who buy your existing stuff.

Lucky for you, connecting with consumers also illuminates opportunities to expand your brand. How? Gathering unfiltered, unprovoked consumer commentary about how your audience is interacting with your products’ ecosystem — competing products, your category, etc. — reveals white space. It shows what’s not there that should be. Or what your competitors are doing that you’re missing out on.

Today’s AI-driven technology makes collecting this consumer commentary easier than ever, and insights that were once lost in pages of raw data are able to rise to the top — ripe for your picking.

Social Listening Plucks Product Ideas Directly from Consumers

You can take advantage of platforms that aggregate millions of mentions across digital touchpoints like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even blogs. That’s social listening.

Maybe you’re Stonyfield and there’s a passionfruit craze on Twitter. You’re now empowered to react to that trend with a new yogurt flavor. And remember, the best part of social listening is that it’s all completely unbiased, unsolicited feedback. Unlike traditional research, which relies on asking consumers leading questions, social listening allows you to be a fly on the wall. Observe and analyze your aggregated data to create consumer-directed products.

AI Tech Opens Endless Research Possibilities

It goes further than social listening, too. In general, AI and machine learning can identify patterns in data to predict personality types, consumer desires, purchase decision drivers, consumer concerns, and more.

You can understand so much about your consumers in a way that goes beyond big data to the emotional nuances driving modern buyers today. And of course, all of this information is a treasure trove of potential products.

Oh, and did we mention that AI-driven solutions are generally cheaper and faster than traditional research?

2. Analyze Target Demographics for Group-Specific Product Ideas

Here’s a seemingly old-school method that could result in your next big idea: Demographic research. Analyzing your target audiences based on groupings can reveal larger trends and preferences for that whole group.

When we say target demographics, we don’t mean “left-handed people in Chicago.” Don’t lump potential customers together ad-hoc. Instead, consider demographics with buying power and strong commonalities — something like millennial moms. Most importantly, research desirable demographics for your brand.

Gain an understanding of that demographics’ behaviors (back to AI-driven insights and social listening) and isolate opportunities for new products addressing that group’s unique traits.

3. Conduct Audits to Expose Your Competitors’ Blindspots — and Your Next Product

When you work for a large CPG, it’s easy to become siloed in your thinking and consumed by your own brand. But fresh ideas flow when you think outside the box.

Try cycling through adjacent category and brand packaging audits to bring original product ideas to light. Believe it or not, you’ll likely learn something new each time you go through these processes, no matter how well you know (or think you know) the industry.

Adjacent Category Audits

Coffee vs. tea, wine vs. beer, cottage cheese vs. yogurt — you get the idea.

Analyze the food and bev categories closely related to yours (similar composition, usage pattern, etc.) by conducting an adjacent category audit. Maybe the tea folks are touting a benefit currently untapped by your coffee competitors. Cue your new idea.

See how easily an adjacent category audit could inspire your next big thing?

Brand Packaging Audits

You’re probably well-versed in brand packaging audits. You identify all of your immediate and indirect competitors so you can compare and contrast the marketing aspects of their packaging.

You can review:

  • Visual language
  • Packaging claims
  • Brand voice
  • Tagline and messaging

Here’s the kicker. Simply understanding what your competition is — and isn’t — saying via their packaging can spark a new idea for your brand.

4. Consider Alternative Packaging Options to Elevate Your Look

Have you noticed how many breakthrough products are just existing items in newfangled packaging?

Pureed baby food has been around for decades. Throw it in a plastic pouch and it’s suddenly innovative. Not for nothing, but those pint-sized food pouches are crushing the baby food scene — who has time to unscrew tiny glass jars, anyway?

This tactic might seem dowdy next to AI-driven tech. But taking a second to consider how you can deliver the same benefit in a new and exciting way has major upsides. Namely, you might not have to create a new product formula, just an eye-catching vehicle for your existing food or beverage product.

Putting it All Together

At the end of the day, it all boils down to white space. Each of these tactics digs up some sort of gap that you can swoop in to fill with your next knockout product.

And remember: Even if you’re already engaged in social listening or accustomed to brand packaging audits, it only takes one tactic one time to inspire innovation. Mix things up with these four options.

Too Many Claims in the Kitchen: How (and Why) to Curb Your Packaging Claims

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Too Many Claims in the Kitchen: How (and Why) to Curb Your Packaging Claims

April 20, 2021

Written By: The GRO Agency

How many claims can you make about your product?

Organic, gluten-free, nutrient-dense, non-GMO, dairy-free, no artificial flavors, will prevent your toddler from throwing a mealtime tantrum, will keep you awake through your 4:00 p.m. Zoom…

Okay, those last couple were just for fun.

In all seriousness, we know you have a lot to say about your product because we know your product is great. And deciding which claims should go on the front of your packaging can feel like picking a favorite child — you may be tempted to choose all of them.

But we promise that selecting just a few pointed claims aimed at your ideal customer is the way to go. Your customer will feel connected when reading your targeted messaging and run to buy your product.

So yes, we are (sort of) asking you to pick your favorite child. Luckily, we have strategies to help you discern which claims to feature on your final packaging.

More Packaging Claims are Not Merrier

You may be wondering why you can’t just put all of your claims on your packaging. After all, you want to cast a wide net, attracting every kind of shopper. But, no matter how counterintuitive it seems, here’s the reality: The more you say, the less shoppers hear.

Today’s consumers have short attention spans. If your packaging is cluttered and wordy, they simply won’t read any of it. Cluttered packaging also looks dated and is hard to follow. Consumers’ eyes might wander, searching for something to focus on. And if there’s too much to focus on, they may just move on to the next product.

Worse yet, your brand could come off as inauthentic or untrustworthy if your packaging is crowded with claims. We know your claims are all true. But if you spout off 10 benefits on the front of your packaging alone, consumers might dismiss it all as, well, bull.

Your Food Product Packaging Claim Options Explained

If you can’t put everything on your packaging, what should you pick to feature? There are four categories of claims you can choose from to create your perfect on-package blend:

  1. Differentiator claims. What makes your product different from the rest of the products in your category? Cheerios, for example, differentiate themselves in the saturated cereal category with their “can help lower cholesterol” assertion.
  2. Benefit claims. Why do consumers need your product? What will it do for them? If it really will calm their toddlers’ mealtime tantrums (we can dream), that’s a rock-solid benefit claim. Or maybe it’s full of vitamin D, getting them through the winter months sans sun.
  3. Feature claims. These are informational claims that outline facets that are unique and specific to your product. Are your ingredients free from synthetic dyes? Are they sourced locally? Note that feature claims can also serve as differentiators.
  4. Trend-based claims. Warning: These claims are temporary. As the name suggests, they rise and fall with passing fads. Currently, the food and beverage industry is brimming with keto-friendly products, for instance. Ingredients can also be trendy, like probiotics.

As a general rule, we recommend selecting no more than three claims for the front of your product’s packaging. Others can go on the back, or get the axe completely. Also, your claims can be any combo of the four categories above.

The Right Balance of Claims Starts with Research

Selecting the right cocktail of claims from these options is a balancing act. You need some reassuring claims that will comfort consumers and prove to them you belong in your category. Like organic in the health food space. But you also need some cutting-edge claims that will make you stand out in an aisle (or six) of organic options.

As you’re conducting research, analyze personality types within your target consumer market. What motivates your ideal customers ? Leverage that intel to inform your claims cocktail.

Don’t Go Overboard with Feature Claims

Choose feature claims sparingly and wisely. When possible, feature claims should be translated into benefit claims.

Let’s say your product contains lion’s mane mushrooms, which enhance focus. It’s awesome that your food item uses a unique ingredient, but does the average consumer know that lion’s mane mushrooms help with focus? Do they even know what a lion’s mane mushroom is?

Your claim should be the benefit: focus. Not the feature: an obscure type of mushroom.

Draw Customers to Your Top Packaging Claims with a Communication Hierarchy

You can use a communication hierarchy to not only narrow down your claims selection, but to organize the claims on your packaging for maximum impact.

A communication hierarchy is the order in which a shopper takes in information about your product and brand. It’s not necessarily top-to-bottom or left-to-right. Rather, it’s what elements jump out to the shopper based on prominence and visibility. Maybe your logo jumps out first, or a gluten-free seal, or your color scheme.

You should take advantage of the communication hierarchy to guide shoppers through your packaging claims. Then, they’re left with a clear picture of your brand and compelling reasons to buy your product. Exactly as you planned.

Choosing Your All-Star Claims

To successfully employ a communication hierarchy, you need to choose your number one claim. Your head honcho. The product’s most vital facet that you want shoppers to latch onto right away. That’s the claim you’ll position most prominently on the front of your packaging — the cornerstone of your communication hierarchy.

As mentioned, a good rule of thumb is to include no more than three claims on the front of your product’s packaging. Relegate the rest (to a point — you may need to cut some completely) to the back.

The good news is that, if your number one claim does its job, shoppers will be compelled to continue reading about your product. They will take in those other two front panel claims and (fingers crossed) move on to the back, too.

Another tip: You don’t want to identify your most valuable claims incorrectly, reading your audience all wrong. Test them by conducting an online research study and ask your target audience for their opinions on which claims are most important to them.

Happy Moose: A Communication Hierarchy in Action

The juice category is jam-packed. Selecting claims that differentiate one juice from another is an especially difficult task.

That’s why, when Happy Moose came to us to optimize their packaging, we knew we’d have to hone in on their top claims to grab consumers’ sought-after attention.

But selecting their primary claims was no easy task. Their juice and wellness shots are fantastic — full of potential benefits to tout. To add to the challenge, their wellness shots are physically small, leaving little real estate to feature claims.

Ultimately, our communication hierarchy for Happy Moose zeroed in on the brand essence: spreading good vibes. The ingredient profile comes in second in the hierarchy. Working closely with local farms, they utilize unique combinations of tree ripened, freshly pressed, imperfect, heirloom fruits and vegetables to create truly exceptional quality and flavor. However, we captured that as a feeling tone, rather than making each claim.

The design of Happy Moose’s packaging — the color scheme, the typography, the imagery — it all supports their claims and brings the brand essence to life.

Here’s the bottom line. There’s a lot we could’ve said about Happy Moose products. This example shows that, even in the most difficult cases, the communication hierarchy comes through. Now, Happy Moose has a beautiful, modern aesthetic to clearly highlight its most compelling selling points.

We’re Here to Help

You know your product best.

The GRO Agency simply complements your product-specific knowledge with our deep industry knowledge. By keeping our finger on the pulse of the industry, we can guide you to select claims that speak to your product’s unique value, but also work within the larger market. And, to further inform your packaging design, we can either facilitate research for you or analyze research you’ve done in-house.

We’d love to help you hone in on your product’s most powerful claims so you can break through in your category.

Your Packaging Has an Expiration Date – and It’s Sooner Than You Think

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Your Packaging Has an Expiration Date – and It’s Sooner Than You Think

April 6, 2021

Written By: The GRO Agency

Product packaging is the only omnipresent representation of your brand. Promotions, advertising, and sometimes even product formulations are short-lived. But your packaging will always be there to greet your customers on the store shelves and in their own pantries.

That alone should compel you to evaluate your packaging ASAP. But unfortunately, if you’re like most large CPGs, you’re not getting around to improving your packaging often enough.

Maybe packaging is the last place you look for opportunity when sales are down. Or maybe the corporate hierarchy is making it too difficult for you to adjust efficiently. Worse, it could be that the executives see your packaging as their legacy, too precious to touch with any regularity.

No matter the reason for the neglect, it’s time to put structure around your packaging evaluation process – or you risk losing your market share to smaller, fresher, more agile brands.

The Importance of Effective Packaging Design

Having a strong, established brand supports — or even drives — the performance of your marketing initiatives and, ultimately, your sales. And packaging is an important tool in your brand marketing toolkit, which also includes activities like advertising and promotions. If you don’t update each of the tools in your toolkit regularly, your brand will never perform at its peak.

In addition, packaging is a valuable brand communicator in and of itself. After all, your product’s packaging is the most consistent, ever-present touchpoint on any path to purchase.

Packaging is also uniquely positioned to appeal to customers every time they’re on this purchase path, every time they’re shopping. Because, when your latest promotion ends, it’s the packaging that’s left alone to sell your product. Effective, appealing packaging will make your customer think, “This is my brand, and I won’t switch to the competitor or generic version this week even though my brand is no longer on sale.”

The Limitations of Your Go-To Marketing Tactics

Promotions, advertising, social media, sampling — all of these tactics have an important place in your brand marketing toolkit and should work together to sell your product.

That said, we’ve already expressed some limitations of these other tactics. Most importantly, remember that they’re all fleeting. Your social media campaign will end; your BOGO pricing will stop; you won’t offer samples forever. And, we can’t say it enough, your packaging is what’s there at every point of purchase no matter what.

There are other limitations to these forms of marketing that don’t apply to packaging at all. Consider the following:

Advertising Is Cost-Prohibitive

Advertising, particularly traditional media advertising, is costly. For one, the advertising audience is highly fractured. You need to buy multiple media assets to reach your target consumers.

Also, advertising is a complex undertaking. Meaning, putting together any type of advertising campaign requires a whole bunch of people from different departments and companies —marketing, ad agency, creative, producers, media planners, buyers, project managers and so on — to come together. That’s a scheduling and budgeting nightmare. Add production costs to that and you’re suddenly spending tens of thousands of dollars on a print ad and hundreds of thousands on a single commercial.

Social media advertising, and digital advertising in general, isn’t as expensive as traditional media, it’s true. Even so, it adds up. You once again have to consider the number of people needed to get a digital campaign going, let alone keep it running successfully.

A crucial side note on social media: It’s completely reliant on beautiful, modern, captivating imagery. If your packaging and brand image are outdated, savvy digital consumers will scroll right by that ad, dismissing your product outright.

When compared to traditional and digital advertising, packaging is a relatively cost-effective way to renew customer interest in your brand. Think of it this way: Upwards of half the cost of product packaging is already built into the cost of goods. A bill you’re already footing since your company is manufacturing millions of units of product all of the time. Slipping a packaging redesign into an existing and continuous production process is not a huge time or budget suck.

Promotions Devalue Products

You could say that promotions have a leg up over advertising because they are present at the time of purchase. Your customers will see that sale price and it will influence their buying decision, which does matter.

However, promotions are at a disadvantage to all other forms of marketing because they cheapen your brand by their very nature. When you lessen the price of your product for a promotion, even though it’s temporary, you’re telling your customers that your product isn’t worth its full price.

You should still absolutely run promotions. Just know that they can’t be your only sales tactic or you will gradually devalue your product. Hence the need for a balance that includes packaging refreshes.

The Key to Keeping Your Packaging Relevant

Hopefully you’re convinced that packaging deserves more attention than it usually gets. But how do you ensure that your packaging remains fresh?

You need to continually evaluate it. It’s not enough to react to trends or challenges after the fact. You need to proactively change your packaging to speak to that trend (embracing it or strategically bypassing it) or avoid that challenge in the first place.

It’s also not enough to change your packaging every five to seven years, as the old industry standard dictated. Our entire world is too fast-paced and the CPG world is too saturated — consumers will simply move on to another product if your packaging gets stale.

In practice, continuous evaluation means putting a cycle in place that both reminds you and forces you to revisit your packaging regularly. There’s no hard and fast rule for how often packaging should actually change, but you should be looking at it, evaluating it, and thinking about changing it at least once per year.

Evaluating your packaging could involve seeking customer feedback on your existing packaging, testing potential new designs, and comparing your packaging to your competitors’.

No matter the process you establish for your iterative packaging review, know that when the time does come to implement a change, you’ll have much of the legwork done from your continuous evaluation efforts. Above all, you’ll end up with more powerful packaging that’s better positioned to impact brand performance.

Simplicity in Design

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Simplicity in Design

October 22, 2020

Written By: The GRO Agency

The simplest design is often the most effective. In order to achieve simplicity in design, know thy consumer!  Understand their goals. Keep it clean. However well-intentioned, when the non-essential details end up on your final design, the consumer may interpret those bells and whistles as distracting. How do we keep eyes on the prize? Highlight the innovative peak benefits of the product while cutting through the noisy clutter of the competition? Lead with the essentials, edit, refine, test, edit again. Discover fresh techniques to light up shelves and screens with concise precision. 

Strategy 1: Laser Focus. Hopefully, the brand team has hacked into the target’s personal agreement that a need must be met and managed. Eliminate less important features and factoids. Your product wins by being clear and decisive.

Strategy 2: Weigh the value of visual and verbal content? Is your creative leading your target to your product or muddling the message? 

Strategy 3: Mind the gap. Between the designer’s creation and the consumer’s experience lies a vast space known as the “Gulf of Execution”. In other words, identify any gaps between the designer’s interpretation of the brand strategy and the consumer’s experience of the final product. As long as the ocular appeal of the product aligns with what the buyer craves psychologically, that gulf narrows and loyalty develops.

Strategy 4: Think function-forward. Pretty graphic design does not equal strategic packaging. Design is functional. Does the aesthetic deliver the message?

Take One Thing Off Your Packaging

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Take One Thing Off Your Packaging

October 6, 2020

Written By: The GRO Agency

Take ONE thing off of your packaging!

In the words of the immortal Coco Chanel: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” Why should it be any different with packaging? Much like great style, great packaging design is about expression. The expression of your brand personality. The expression of your unique value proposition.

At GRO, we talk about simplicity a lot. Complex problems often have simple solutions. For branding, use this formula: target consumer’s need+unique solution=purchase. Are you solving a specific problem for someone? If you’re not, go back to the beginning and work on the product. If you are, refine your message. What is the simplest way to bring your message to life through design? Refine. Distill. Refine. Distill. Whittling it down is a process.

Being decisive is the key to distilling harmony from chaos, which can be hard if you are inside your brand. Once you’ve found the core value, keep your package simple. Reserve the front of the pack for the most important claims and messages and put everything else on the sides and back. DO NOT cram it all in. Sometimes more is just more. Remember: the more you say, the less people hear.

Which of these packages communicates the core brand message faster?

How Well Do You Know Your Target?

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How Well Do You Know Your Target?

September 25, 2020

Written By: The GRO Agency

Chris Rock recently described his relationship with his audience as a private love affair that outsiders were not meant to understand. Brand voices and their targeted future customers form a similar bond. If the message makes sense, then the message was made for you. Developing and maintaining authentic connections between brands and target audiences begins with a strong command of translating strategy into the target persona’s love language, so to speak. 

Social media audience research has a direct impact on the specificity and reach of the target message. The deeper the study, the more opportunity to hone the brand identity and ensure influence. Almost everyone needs guidance to be a more effective communicator. Read on for strategies to be seen, heard, and dominate your target group.

Get to Know Who Knows You

When compiling data, start simple. Brands of all sizes can benefit from this strategy:

Step one, study the profile of your existing following. Demographic segmentation is an age-old go-to for marketers. Demographic segmentation pinpoints general audience profiles like age, ethnicity, and income. 

Step two, balance your study with understanding the psychographics of your community because people within identical demographic profiles can behave in drastically varied ways. Suss out more refined subtleties within the target audience with psychographics. Psychographics hone in on the shadings of the abstract qualities such as sensitivities, concerns, and tastes. 

Step three, schedule regular evaluations of your target audience. Like fashion, data can be informal or formal. Brand managers don’t always have to spend time and money on formal qualitative and quantitative research to gain insight.  A regular cycle of social media analysis is a casual way to identify the points of connection that forge your following. Without regular check-ins, you are bound to lose connection with your consumer. 

Discover details about your demographic and investigate the psychographics that drive purchase of your brand to sharpen your focus. Psychographic investigations allow for  specialization of your brand’s vibe and message and establish optimal odds for marketing success. Demographics are a strong predictor of the audience in the center of your bullseye. However, psychographic segmentation offers more leveraging power when developing a brand voice heard by precisely the right audience. Now engaging with your target audience is standardized and reliable as a measure for increasing profitability. The takeaway: make the time to put yourself in your consumer’s shoes. Empathy is a powerful tool to guide design and marketing decisions. 

Clarity Equals Visibility

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Clarity Equals Visibility

September 18, 2020

Written By: The GRO Agency

Branding is more than design. Branding is clarity. Is your value clear? The purpose of branding is to examine the product through the consumer’s experience and distill the value proposition. When done well, powerful intuitive connections drive consumer awareness, conversion, and loyalty. Clarity equals visibility. The degree to which your product draws the attention of the consumer depends on a clear, resonant, and visually organized packaging and communication strategy. Read on for tips that apply to any brand, at any stage.

Pause. At any stage–perhaps, at every stage–brands should pause to reflect on the state of their brand. Schedule regular strategy sessions to review the effectiveness of the current brand.

Be objective. Don’t take for granted the way other people perceive your brand or product. As David Foster Wallace pointed out, a fish doesn’t know water until it leaves the fishbowl. Often, the most important elements of your brand are the hardest to see from the inside. Enlist objective perspectives.

Distill. Can you elegantly articulate your unique value in 10 words or less? Or, do you stumble through the plethora of features and benefits that appeal to a wide variety of consumers?

Recognize who you are and what you do. This process seems fairly straightforward, yet it requires ongoing attention. The intricacy is layered in your identity and how well you know and relate to your target. Keep in mind that change is the only constant. Stay fresh. Be prepared to recommit to your messaging and visual language, regularly.