Portion cues in food packaging: Implicit seduction

Ever wondered about the adequate portion size of a glass of soda or juice? A bowl of cereals? Or spreads for your sandwich? Maybe you do think about this from time to time, maybe you don't. Chances are, however, that cues around you have implicitly seduced you (they "nudged" you) to have a certain portion size because they set anchors on which you rely to make your own choices. One such cue could be provided by social comparison: you tend to derive information from what others do. For instance, you'll take a bit more than a smaller person or somebody you know to be dieting. These are quite valid cues. But we are also surrounded by biased cues on food packaging. Next time you open the fridge or you're sitting at the breakfast table, you better take a good look and then think about this post.

Decrease in "showrooming" - An issue for FMCGs

Last week, @GinoVanOssel published an interesting post on the topic of showrooming. Brick-and-mortar retailers for high involvement goods face an interesting challenge from online retailers. Potential customers increasingly tend to visit showrooms to check out the products and then start searching online for the best bargain on their preferred product. So, the brick-and-mortar retailers invest in showrooms and staff, yet the online retailers get the the deal. This topic is often discussed, but less attention goes to a complementary issue in the low involvement category of FMCGs. With the steadily rising popularity of online grocery shopping and accompanying shopping apps, the producers of FMCGs are missing out on valuable marketing communications precisely because of the decrease of showrooming.

Green is for NO! Snickers' nutrition labels

Nutrition information on packaged foods indicating, for instance, caloric content is legally enforced in the United States and also in Europe there are only a few exceptions (I don't know about regulations in other parts of the world, so please leave a comment if you do so). What has been an issue, however, and one that has been debated for a long time, is the exact form these labels should have. What information should be present? In which format should it be presented? Where should the information be? There are still a number of degrees of freedom pertaining to these choices. In the USA, food manufacturers decided themselves to put the labels on the front of the packages. Being in the States at the moment, one of these front-of-pack labels caught my attention. It is the attention-grabbing green label on the Snickers bars. And I have ambivalent thoughts about it...

Example of a US Snickers calories label (originally featured on John B. Mahaffie's Blog)

Old school marketing revival on the way: Package and product quality

After the advertising clutter paradox in the nineties and nillies, the advent of mobile phone and tablet technology has been heralded as the holy grail of modern advertising. These new technologies indeed guarantee new and improved communications between brands and customers. They also make sure that at the conscious level, there should be a great deal of integrity put into the marketing efforts with these new channels. As a customer, we should therefore welcome these applications, I believe. These modern technologies also have their impact on more traditional advertising. As I suggest below, this is true for traditional above-the-line advertising as well as for the most basic of all marketing communication tools: the product and its packaging.