(Now that would be a great name for a band!) Campbell's is using biometric insights to try to get more shoppers to pick up their condensed soup at the soupermarket (sorry), reports Ilan Brat in the Wall Street Journal (2/17/10). The problem is that apparently most people have no idea why they buy soup; if you ask them they'll usually say they don't know. So, Campbell is now studying "microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate and other biometrics to see how consumers react to everything from pictures of bowls of soup to logo design" (the article didn't say whether Campbell also tests for how consumers react to the soup itself).

The limitation is that although biometric tools can determine that someone has had an emotional reaction to something, they "can't pinpoint what emotions a person feels" -- be they positive or negative emotions. "But if all the biological metrics move simultaneously in the same direction, the subject is likely to be emotionally engaging with something." Working with Innerscope Research, Campbell had shoppers wear tiny video cameras at eye level to track eye movement and wear vests that recorded things like skin moisture, heart rate, breathing and posture.

They found very little emotional reaction to Campbell's soup at the shelf. But they did discover that the brand's iconic logo actually is distracting, and "makes its many varieties of soups seem to blend together." The spoon pictured on labels didn't generate any emotional charge, either, and shoppers told interviewers that the soup didn't look warm. So, Campbell's is making its logo smaller and moving it to the bottom of the label, removing the spoons and picturing a whiff of steam for warmth (image). The only exceptions are labels for Andy Warhol's famous chicken noodle, tomato and cream of mushroom labels, which remain Campbell's best sellers.

Let's put a new lens on the future of shopper marketing.  By Anne Howe. (more)

Time was that "people could see and smell the place where their favorite sweets were made," but today "regional candies are a dying breed," writes Steve Almond in the Wall Street Journal (1/30/10). Marty Palmer, a fifth generation of the family-run Palmer Candy in Sioux City, Iowa, is one of the survivors. Palmer Candy makes a local treat called the Twin Bing, which is two mounds of a cherry-flavored nougat encased by "a lump of "chocolate-and-peanut hash."

Marty says Palmer originally delivered its treats by horse-drawn wagon, to dry goods stores. In those days, the candy you ate was whatever was locally made, and they were usually made of local ingredients: "If you lived in a region that produced cherries or walnuts, chances are those were in your candy bars." Nashville still has its GooGoo Cluster, "a disc of caramel and marshmallow covered in milk chocolate, dappled with peanuts, then drenched in more chocolate ... Considered by most Southerners to be the official candy bar of Dixie."

In Kansas, you can still get the Valomilk, "a thin cup of chocolate filled with vanilla syrup," and Missouri still has its Cherry Mash, which dates back to 1918. In "the years between the two world wars, 30,000 different brands were introduced in the United States alone." But as both the candy and retail industries consolidated, most of them disappeared, either acquired or put under by Hershey, Mars, and Nestle. Fortunately, those who crave "getting something you can't get elsewhere," and with a story behind it, can still go wild at candydirect dot-com.

"Growlers have been around since Christ was a child ... We're not doing anything new," says Ben Granger in a New York Times piece by Robert Simonson (1/27/10). Growlers? They are "64-ounce glass vessels that look like a moonshine jug," that, despite their ancient origins "have become the beer accessory of the moment." Ben introduced them at Bierkraft, his "grocery store and beer emporium, almost four years ago. Instead of picking up a six-pack, his shoppers bring in their growlers and have them filled with any brew from one of Bierkraft's "13 taps and 3 cask lines."

Ben says he was surprised by the Growler's appeal. "In the beginning we tried to figure out, 'Who's going to be our market?" he explains. "We thought, mullet-heads and beer-bellied dudes. But the first run was ladies with strollers. They will tell you they're buying them for their husbands. Three weeks later, they've got two. One's his and one's hers. The next one that caught me was dads coming in with their kids. Then there's the beer crowd who'll rush in to get on this or that before it's gone."

The appeal of Growlers is pretty obvious: Re-filling a jug of beer is both relatively inexpensive and environmentally friendly. Then, of course, there's the beer, which is always interesting and usually fresh -- provided the Growler is filled properly. Ben Granger makes sure of that with "a system in which bottles are filled under pressure through a plastic hose to keep out oxygen." Ironically, what you don't want is to hear the beer growl: In the old days Growlers were "small galvanized pails" and the name "is thought to be inspired by the rumbling noise escaping carbon dioxide made as the beer sloshed around in the pail."

Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire aren't retailers, but hope their e-commerce site of everyday items will help packaged-goods companies beat the private-label squeeze, reports Sandra M. Jones in the Chicago Tribune (7/27/09). Last summer, Brian and Mark launched Alice, an e-commerce site they say is designed to help shoppers make sure they never run out of household staples. Basically, this means keeping track of what people buy and sending them reminders when it's time to re-order.

"We know that you need toilet paper, shampoo and toothpaste, and we know that you will run out," says Brian. "We help manage it so you never run out." But beyond that, they see Alice.com as a way for packaged-goods marketers to re-gain any "shelf space" they might be losing to private-label brands. The way it works is, "manufacturers set the prices and target consumers with coupons and loyalty programs geared to individual shoppers. Alice.com fills the orders, handles shipping and customer service."

Thin margins have upended previous e-commerce attempts at packaged-goods, but that's not a problem here because Alice isn't really a retailer. Instead, the model is "providing advertising space and spending data to the consumer-product manufacturers, as well as taking a cut of the coupon and loyalty programs." In addition, "shipping is free, and the site boasts prices generally 20 percent below online rivals." Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru thinks Alice just might have legs, calling packaged goods the "last bastion of opportunity in e-commerce." And, yes, the site is named for Alice of Brady Bunch fame.

A study of multichannel shoppers yields valuable insights. By Masha Sajdeh and Nick Jones. (more)

Starbucks figured out that it could simplify its banana bread if it simply substituted more bananas for artificial flavoring, reports Bruce Horovitz in USA Today (10/28/09). "We can just put more bananas in and do the same job," says Sarah Osmer, who directs health and wellness for Starbucks. To make sure its customers didn't miss the point, Starbucks "handed out samples of the new banana bread along with index cards listing the ingredients." The chain is taking a similar approach with Vivanno, a fruit smoothie drink, that's made with just "four ingredients: milk, juice, banana and natural protein fiber powder."

Wait a minute -- does "natural protein fiber powder" really qualify as a single item? Hm. Anyway, the smoothie keeps Starbucks on trend, which is toward fewer ingredients in its food items. According to Datamonitor, there was "a 64.7 percent increase in new products using the word 'simple' or 'simply' in the product" between 2005 and 2008. Lynn Dornblaser of Mintel says that simpler products, with fewer ingredients stand to compete well in the year ahead. The reason is that consumers assume that items with fewer ingredients are probably healthier, and so "simple" has become the new "organic."

As Michael Pollan observes, "The food business has always been ingenious at turning any criticism into a new way to sell food." Michael is of course famous for popularizing the idea "of buying foods with five or fewer ingredients." And while less processed food is probably better for you, Michael probably wasn't talking about unprocessed fat and sugar. But that's what Haagen Dazs is talking about with its "Five" line of ice cream, which contain just five ingredients -- "milk, cream, sugar, eggs and one natural flavor, such as mint." The company says Five "already accounts for 10 percent of the brand's business." Nutritionist Marion Nestle notes that this is "savvy marketing that consumers are buying right into."

"Vietnam is one of the most exciting beer markets in the world today," says Walter Bocker in a Wall Street Journal piece by James Hookway (9/15/09). Walter is with Gannon Group, which is "Anheuser-Busch's Vietnam-based partner." He is joined in his enthusiasm by Carlsberg, Heineken and SAB Miller, each of which has a joint-venture going in Vietnam. Collectively, these foreign brewers have put Vietnam's state-run beer enterprises on the run, but not for long, perhaps. Never underestimate the potential of socialized beer.

Local, "state-invested Vietnamese brewers," such as "Hanoi-based Habeco and Ho Chi Minh City's Sabeco are readying themselves for a fight." Their strategy centers on providing something the imports do not -- specifically a local specialty called "bia hoi, which translates as 'fresh beer,' a relatively low-alcohol, bitter brew with a shelf life of a few days that makes up 30 percent of the beer market" in Vietnam. Bia hoi costs "about a third the price of an international brand," and first became popular during the U.S. Vietnam war, when there wasn't enough glass to make bottles.

To this day, Bia hoi is "sold only in kegs, delivered early each morning to hundreds of side-street restaurants in Hanoi. By lunchtime, people are tossing back chipped-glass-tumblers of the beer while munching dried squid, fried tofu and other snacks." Habeco, founded in 1890 by French colonials, has seen its sales double between 2004 and 2007. Sabeco's sales have increased to 900 million litres from 500 million between 2006 and 2008. However, foreign brewers see in bia hoi only a quagmire of "low margins and different route-to-market characteristics," and plan to continue to rely on "deep pockets" and traditional marketing techniques.

Shopper marketing must not be subordinated to category management.  By Chris Hoyt. (more)

Last November, two managers walked into a meeting and turned the tide at Procter & Gamble, reports Ellen Byron in the Wall Street Journal (8/6/09). "Just listen and keep an open mind," Suzanne Watson, one of the managers, told a roomful of executives. Her message was that P&G should introduce a bargain version of its iconic Tide detergent, whose strategy has always been to persuade shoppers to pay a higher price for a better product. P&G actually had already gone the downscale route with its Charmin and Bounty brands, but Tide is the company's best-selling brand in America.

That P&G decided to test the idea in about 100 Kroger and Walmart stores in Southern states says a lot about the American economy, but it also represents a shift from P&G's "new and improved" mantra to something decidedly less aspirational. "Now, some of the biggest innovations in our company are geared toward making products more affordable," says P&G's Bruce Brown. That's at least partly because P&G was creating products for developing countries, but now they're applying that kind of cheap and cheerful know-how at home.

The new Tide product, called Tide Basic, is powdered, boxed, and contains less of "the anti-pilling and color-preservation technologies embedded in regular Tide." It was created using "the company's existing fragrances, whitening agents, stain-fighting enzymes and other technologies," and costs about 20 percent less. The packaging is yellow -- not Tide's trademark orange -- picked precisely because P&G hopes it will "discourage current Tide users" from trading down and cannibalizing sales. The question, of course, is whether Tide Basic will boost sales, damage Tide's brand equity, or both. What do you think?