(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.

Conceived in Austria as an alternative to smoking, Pez candy "took on a vibrant new life as a children's product," in America, reports Margalit Fox in the New York Times (1/5/10). The turning point came in 1955, when the late Curtis Allina, who died last month at 87, convinced headquarters to start producing Pez in fruity flavors and packaging them with whimsical, plastic heads -- "TV characters, cartoon figures or historical personages" -- that flipped back to dispense the candy.

At the time, Pez was strictly for grownups and "mint-flavored (the name is a contraction of pfefferminz, the German word for peppermint.)" They were packaged in "plain, long-stemmed dispensers meant to suggest cigarette lighters." But Curtis, a Holocaust survivor who had emigrated to America, somehow managed to get approval from the very conservative home office in Vienna to dress up Pez in "two character dispensers, Santa Claus and a robot known as the Space Trooper."

It's not known whether Curtis, himself, came up with the idea; the only thing that's for sure is that he was the guy who made it happen. And, after years of struggling in the American market, Pez became a hit -- and, of course, has since become a baby-boomer, pop-culture icon, featuring characters from Popeye to Mozart. Pez today "sells tens of thousands of dispensers each year in 80 countries," and its vintage collectibles continue to do a brisk business on eBay and various Pez conventions.

Great design informed by solid research is the shortest distance between a shopper and a brand.   By Susan Nelson and Mary Zalla. (more)
 

Shopper marketing is the elephant in the room that nobody sees quite the same way. By Chris Hoyt. (more)

"People still love bubbles," says PepsiCo ceo Indra Nooyi in a Wall Street Journal interview with Betsy McKay (9/11/08). After noting that her own 15-year-old daughter "drinks Pepsi every day," Indra goes on to describe her own affinity for her brands: "We have Lay's chips for dinner every night. Indian cuisine has a crisp with dinner -- a papadum -- but we just use Lay's Kettle chips or Miss Vickie's Simply Sea Salt or Jalepeno." Indra also says she also likes Lay's Kettle chips, slightly heated, with lunch. For breakfast, it's usually Quaker Oats for breakfast, with Tropicana juice.

However, despite the growth market for PepsiCo products in the Nooyi household, Indra is fully aware of her challenges. Beverage sales in the U.S. are down, grain prices are up and Coke is buying "a big Chinese juice company for about $2.4 billion." Indra says part of the problem is that consumers now finish the beverages they buy instead of throwing away leftovers the way they used to. That the housing market is down means fewer construction workers are buying fewer snacks.

The solution, says Indra, is to "segment your portfolio very, very carefully. You want targeted innovation that grabs the consumer and gives people a reason to buy." She sees "good for you" or "better for you" products as a way in, having spun off Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC, and acquired Quaker Oats and Tropicana, for example. And she sees China, India and Russia as places where PepsiCo expects to realize "spectacular" growth. She says she stays in touch by listening "to kids talk about what they're consuming," and reading pubs like People and Vanity Fair. "Brands never die," says Indra, "You only stop reinventing them." ~ Tim Manners, editor

Sam's Club is rolling out re-designed gallon jugs for milk that cost less, fit better in the fridge and are "greener" -- but shoppers aren't happy about it, reports Stephanie Rosenbloom in the New York Times (6/30/08). "It spills everywhere," says one unhappy shopper. "It's very hard for kids to pour," says another. "I hate it," says a third. The reason is, these new jugs "have no real spout," and require consumers to re-learn how to pour milk. "Just tilt it slowly and pour slowly," advises Mary Tilton, while doing a milk-and-cookie demonstration of the new container (picture here) at a Sam's Club in Ohio.

Or, as Mike Compston, a dairy farmer, explains, it's "a rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip." And we had better get used to it. "This is a key strategy as a path forward," says Anne Johnson of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. "Re-examining, 'What are the materials we are using? How are we using them? And where do they go ultimately?'" There's actually a lot to like about the new containers. For one thing, the new design lowers the cost of a gallon of milk from $2.58 to $2.18 at Sam's Club. The savings is partly thanks to new efficiencies realized by the container's flat tops, which makes them stackable without having to use crates.

In addition to reducing labor by about half, there's the matter of the bird droppings. It seems birds used to roost on the crates, requiring about "100,000 gallons of water a day" to clean them. In addition, the crates no longer have to be retrieved from the retailer, "reducing trips to each Sam's Club store to two a week, from five ... Also, Sam's Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in its coolers in the same space that used to hold 80." And, thanks to the new efficiencies, the milk is fresher -- making it from the cow to the store between morning and afternoon, "compared with several hours later or the next morning." The new jugs can be found in 189 Sam's Club stores and may soon show up at Wal-Mart, as well. ~ Tim Manners, editor