Brands, mums and future generations!

You’ll often hear parents saying “kids never listen”, and with the total cost of raising a child at more than £222,000 I can see why that might be frustrating, however, kids may not be listening but they are watching!

According to research conducted by Shopitize, 75% of all consumers buy the same brands as their mothers. So with a significant 61% switch from branded to cheaper, own-label goods, it makes sense that supermarket chains are honing in on kids from a very young age. For example, Tesco launched its Tesco Loves Baby club and in 2013 Morrison’s Kiddicare also rolled out its first big marketing push by sponsoring ITV2 show Up All Night - all in aid of fostering favouritism in parents.

There is hope for brands yet but they need to be savvy about the way they attract mums, especially considering that the average age of a mum is 29, so new mums tend to be digital savvy, frequently using price comparison sites and seek out product reviews.

However, dropping price to compete with own label, something that we often do in the UK, isn’t always the right way to do things. Brian Walmsley, chief marketing officer at Bounty’s parent company, the Treehouse Group argues that retailers need to tread carefully when it comes to offering products on promotion, as opposed to maintaining price. Walmsley recently said “what mums are saying clearly is that they are interested in brands helping them in other ways”. What mums actually want is more useful information and tips, loyalty schemes and evidence that brands care about the whole family.

So it seems that if brands want future generations to purchase their products, own label or not, they’re going to need to think of ways to attract mums by adding value to the brand, after all value is a significant determinant of customer satisfaction. Mums want to feel that the brand cares about them not necessarily about their purse strings. Then, hopefully, 75% of consumers who buy the same products as their mums will grow!

A Jaguar you can drink and a football team that you can’t beat!

I know my last post was also about football so I must apologise to those who really don't care about football or football promotions, but as you’ve probably gathered from the title of this post, it focuses on football. With this post however, I look at a drinks brand trying to make a name for itself in the UK!

Jaguar or JED (Jaguar Energy Dink) is a non-alcoholic energy drink produced in Austria, owned by Barcode GT LLC, distributed throughout Europe and is (already in the UK) currently trying to stamp some authority on the UK drinks market.

Jaguar, the fairly unknown brand have now announced a new partnership agreement to become the official partner of a Barclay's Premier League football club. Not a small club like Norwich, Crystal Palace or Hull, but Manchester City! Last year’s champions and quite possibly this years as well. JED will be the first ‘Official UK and Ireland Energy Drink Partner’ of Manchester City Football Club.

Jaguar say that they "aim to bring the element of luxury, sophistication and finesse of Jaguar Energy Drink to the UK market. We are confident that once you experience the premium taste of this elite brand, you too will follow our passion of ‘Once Jaguar, Always Jaguar’"

As time goes by, it will be interesting to see if the drink becomes popular here in the UK. The partnership began on 3^rd of February and I still haven’t see it on shelves.

Glacéau vitaminwater's World Cup 'Shoot to Win'

As we are all well aware the 2014 World Cup is fast approaching, tickets to Rio are being booked, bets are being placed and brands around the globe are surfing on the ‘World Cup Wave’.

Glacéau vitaminwater, from Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE), are well aware of the buzz created by the world cup. For example, during the World Cup period in 2010 retail sales rose by 2.2%. This month Glacéau vitaminwater are capitalising on the buzz in Britain by launching a World Cup on-pack promotion. The promotion, ‘Shoot to Win’, challenges consumers to capture an ‘everyday colourful moment’ for a chance to win a camera and a trip for two to watch a 2014 FIFA World Cup quarter-final match. Not a bad prize unless you're an England supporter, hate loosing and disagree with pundits who know that we're likely to be knocked out by the hosts, just like we were in the 2002 World Cup. Although it's not all bad I guess, you've still got a camera.

Being supported in-store and via social media platforms the competition will reach, and appeal to, football fanatics, as well as consumers who enjoy taking photographs. According to Caroline Cater, CCE’s Operational Marketing Director, Glacéau vitaminwater is running this promotion to encourage “trial of the brand”, drive “repeat purchase” and ultimately help to drive CCE’s sales in the upcoming months.

I imagine that Glacéau vitaminwater are looking to capitalise on this sporting event in the same way they capitalised on the Olympics, where they had a huge success growing their business by 34%! As we get closer to the Olympics I’m sure a lot of brands will be doing the same thing ;);).

Robinsons competitor Jucee have a new 'No Added Sugar' offering

On 3^rd March 2014, Princess, the holding company for brands such as Flora, Branston and more poignant for us, Jucee, launched another Jucee flavour, Cherries & Berries. Cherries & Berries is the 10^th variant in the convenience sector range, which recently moved to a 1.5 litre price-marked pack format, meeting retailer and consumer needs. This is the first time that the Cherries & Berries flavour has been available in squash format for the convenience and independent grocery sector.

Looking to appeal to kids Jucee has introduced three child-friendly characters onto their pack design ‘Ozzie Orange’, ‘Archie Apple’, 'Suzy Strawberry' and ‘Charlie Cherry’. These characters are an attempt to communicate the brand values of great taste, value, and fun. They're also featured heavily in Jucee’s on-going sponsorship with Nickelodeon, which, in 2013, reached 54% of all children in the UK.

In accordance with Netmums advice for parents, the new packaging design sees the label ‘No Added Sugar’ front and centre. After researching it appears as if the issues surrounding sugar in kid’s drinks are hitting drinks brands hard. The table below shows us which Jucee products are stocked in which supermarkets. Providing a clearly visible example of what I’ve spoken about in some of my previous posts ‘A spoonful of sugar could make the sales go down’ and ‘Netmums on sugar’, sugar isn’t welcome anymore, demonstrated clearly by the lack of Jucee’s ‘Standard Squash’ (i.e. with added sugar) in any of the major supermarkets. Coinciding with this, their ‘No Added Sugar’ offerings are stoked in ASDA, TESCO and Morrisons.

At only £1.29 for a 1.5L bottle, cheaper than some competing products, could Jucee be a real threat to other brands in the squash territory? From what I’ve seen, no, no it won’t. Robinsons Apple & Blackcurrant Drink with No Added Sugar (1L) costs 7.4p per 100ml whereas Jucee’s Cherries & Berries (1.5L) comes in at 8.6p per 100ml. So there!

Incredibly creepy or incredible and creepy?

Everyone who’s seen the Minority Report remembers the scene where Tom Cruise walks into the shopping centre and the adverts become personalised and speak directly to him. If you don’t remember, or you haven’t seen the film, take a look at the video below.

As you may already know, in 2013 Tesco signed with Lord Sugar’s company Amscreen to install TV screens in 450 of its petrol stations. Each screen has a camera in it, which scans the face of every consumer, automatically deciding their age and gender. Consumers are then shown targeted adverts based on those details. As you can imagine, once all of the flaws have been ironed out, this is going to be incredibly beneficial for marketers.

This year, Emotient, the leading authority on facial expression recognition and analysis, have taken the above a step further. Rather than focusing on relaying a message across to the consumer like Amscreen, they’re actually helping us gain more accurate and real-time data about consumers’ interactions with products, offers and the store itself. The technology works by tracking the seven primary facial emotions (joy, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and contempt) and then collating all of this information so that we can understand consumers’ reactions at POS. Click here to watch a video that will provide a more comprehensive explanation. 

As this technology is utilised in multiple locations and by all brands, shops and agencies will have a database of accurate consumer information that we've never been able to collect before. Not only will this information allow us to target consumers as seen in the clip from Minority Report, but we will also know how they're feeling, allowing us to tailor adverts to suit every age, gender and even mood. Incredible stuff don’t you think?

Netmums on sugar

As touched on in my previous post ‘A spoonful of sugar could make the sales go down’, sugar is being highlighted by the government as a major concern when it comes to children. The NHS states that most adults and children in the UK consume too much sugar. The government are calling sugar the new tobacco and mums are taking it a step further, with Netmums referring to Glucose Fructose Syrup as "Devil's candy".

So with the social media, the government and the NHS giving sugars a bad name, artificial sweeteners must be the way forward right? Wrong! Health fears about Aspartame (E951) have been around for some time. Some research suggests that aspartame causes cancer in lab rats, but this has been refuted, believe it or not, by the manufacturers of Aspartame. Either way this doesn’t hide the fact that sugar is just as dangerous for humans as it is for rats.

So what are mums happy for their children to drink? The advice from Netmums when thinking about kids drinks (‘Lunchbox Ideas’) is as follows:

-Water
-Milk (whole, semi-skimmed, goats or soya)
-Milkshake
-Pure fruit juice or smoothie – preferably diluted.
-Occasional well diluted high-juice squash (a note about sugar free options)

Lucky for us, Netmums have condoned squash to a certain extent. We should, however, still be thinking about what will happen if regulatory bodies continue to chip away at mums, stating that sugar will chip away kids teeth.

The future is nigh

We all knew the time would come when gadgets we saw on sci-fi films and TV shows like Star Trek would become a reality. Not only have Samsung produced something that’s proved us right with their Gear 2 Smartwatches, but, this year PayPal have jumped at the opportunity to change the way we pay using the Gear 2 Smartwatch technology.  

Changing the way we pay has come up in one of my previous posts ‘Paying for things by tweeting or... with your face?’ but if Smartwatches do catch on, PayPal may have hit the nail on the head and revolutionised shopping. Ultimately, Paypal are working on a concept for the new Samsung smartwatch, which will allow customers to pay for products in store using touchpay technology. Check out the video below to understand a bit more about it.