Archive for the ‘Healthy Eating’ Category

Mobile Shopper Aids Invade! Are We Ready?

Saturday, August 25th, 2012

IBM and Amazon Flow announced new “augmented reality” consumer shopping aids last week.   The new devices add the ability to identify products on shelf using image recognition, to the already available bar code and QR code scanners.  Once a product is identified by image recognition the application can: 

  • ·         tell stories about the products                          
  • ·         play trailers of movies,
  • ·         playing cuts from a CD,
  •                  ibmaugmentedreality.jpg      
  •             compare prices with other stores
  • ·         display nutritional values, allergen warnings or more suitable alternatives or
  • ·         rank product features based on a shopper chosen criteria. 

Both applications are in for a hard row to hoe in CPG because of the Gap between the product images and data available from brands or commercial data capture houses, and the actual packaging on the retail shelf.   

ShelfSnap has done the only empirical studies of this gap (The Consumer Relevant Product Image and Data Gap) and found the gap between data and shelf to affect 64% the products commonly stocked on key retailer shelves.   To amplify the work it has already done on entire categories, ShelfSnap recently evaluated the gap for shopping baskets of almost two hundred items ordered online from one of the top two online grocers in the world.  

consumer-relevant-product-gap.jpg

 We compared what we saw online and the nutritional panel information for the products we ordered each week, to the products we received:

·         63% of the products delivered had packaging that differed from the image online.

·         58% of the items with differing packaging also had differences in the primary nutritional panel on the package vs. what was represented online.

·         The images used by the retailer were supplied by the manufacturer or by one of two top commercial houses claiming absolutely accurate data.  It may have been accurate for the products it portrayed, but it wasn’t Relevant to the products delivered or available on shelf to the consumer.

Without tying products the products that consumers are finding on shelf or in their delivery totes back to the product images and especially the health and wellness data in the mobile or online application brands and retailers will at least sub-optimize the potential of these great new tools, and more seriously may raise the consumer’s ire by appearing to mislead them.  Can anyone say Pink Slime?


 

 

 

Usage Decay Rate on Mobile Applications Over 90%, Missing or Irrelevant Product Data The Cause?

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

One of the mobile application measurement services recently reported that the use of mobile applications generally fell off by over 90% after the initial post-download burst of enthusiasm.

In some ways this dramatic dropoff should not surprise as many low cost, reusable products and services (I-Pod songs, Happy Meal Toys) get scant attention after initial use.

Still, this 90+% decay curve is a staggering statistic and one that should give marketers pause.  Clearly in order to earn ongoing consumer usage an application must be:

  • Useful, having some utility meaningful for that consumer
  • Easily accessed
  • Easy to run (simply input in CPG that means either  a list of options salient to the user or the ability to scan a picture or bar-code for self selection)
  • Rewarding.  The application needs to have a high probability of returning data relevant to the person operating the application.

With regard to this last point,  a study run by GS1 UK examined consumer usage of mobile applications  involving consumers attempting to gain product information by scanning or taking pictures of products on the shelf.  The consumers were hoping for information  regarding:

  • health and wellness guidance
  • promotional offers
  • other product information

Over 90% of the usage attempts resulted in either no data or in images/data inconsistent with the actual brand data according to the manufacturer.

I am of the opinion that the only appropriate gauge of product image and data accuracy is one that begins with how relevant the product image and data are to the consumer when they visit the shelf.   If the product displayed in the application is not the product found on shelf then the data fails.  We call such data Consumer Relevant Product Data.  The gap between the data available for mobile and online applications and the package the consumer sees on the shelf, is called the Consumer Relevant Product Data Gap.  

ShelfSnap with two partners, are engaged in a much more in depth and ongoing review of this Consumer Relevant Product Data Gap.  We will extend the research to compare what the consumer sees in their application to the actual product on shelf (vs. the manufacturer’s impression of which product is current).  We will also test how consumer purchase behavior is affected by the disparity.   The report will cover:

  • The impact on shopper behavior
    • Sales
    • Dwell time
    • Brand – Banner perception
  • The significance of the problem in terms both of:
    • The percentage of products affected by the gap
    • The severity of the differences.

 

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So far our findings indicate that the  gap between the images that manufacturers think are current and the packaging the consumer actually sees on the shelf is well over 50%, regardless of the source of the images used in the consumer applications.   Mobile, online and even product specific paper coupon efforts are handicapped by this impediment.   Of that there can be no doubt.  This is an important set of findings and one of which marketing buyers need be aware.

The Role of Relevant CPG Product Images in Online – Mobile and At-The-Shelf Applications

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

ShelfSnap has documented a great deal of learning in CPG merchandising over the last two years.

A new area of study has begun to uncover and document a stubborn and significant gap between the product images featured on mobile – online applications and the actual product packaging at the shelf.   We are pleased to have the first publication of this occur in an important new online community of CG and Retail professionals called BrickMeetsClick.com. 

The focus of this new community is the intersection of where online and in-store shopping converge.  The founder and “architect” is Bill Bishop.   He engages what he terms black-belt thinkers from a variety of disciplines to help foster the discussion.  We were pleased to be his first black belt effort.    Read the piece here http://www.brickmeetsclick.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/0/5d7c27b7e82fad98115e93aaeaf5363a/files/do_the_images_match_6_14.pdf

and make BrickMeetsClick at least a weekly visit.

We will be examining more on this subject shortly in this blog as well.

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Health & Wellness 3.0?

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

I have written extensively about the underlying product information challenges facing the companies attempting to inform consumers about eating more healthy through simplified labeling.   (more…)

No Silver Bullets – Leadership in CPG

Monday, June 16th, 2008

leadership.jpgIn an early June rant, I gave my impressions of the recent FMI show.  I thought the show represented the changes in collaborative leadership that are beginning to emerge in the CPG and Retail Industries.    Clearly both FMI and GMA are in a state of flux about their direction and about the issues in which they wish to be involved. (more…)

More on Unhealthy Product Data!

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

by: John Pryslak, Prime Consulting

 

While current, accurate and complete product information data is the foundation of any Health & Wellness program, any competitive advantage is NOT contained in the data itself, but rather in how the program (Guiding Stars, ONQI etc.) is designed and communicated to the consumer.

 

That said, a lack of current, accurate and complete product information data will be the Achilles heel for a retailer’s Health & Wellness program.  Imagine a program where individual products are rated against a defined and proprietary set of nutritional criteria and assigned a rating based on how good they are for you (not TOO hard to imagine since several such programs are already in place).  The overall nutritional worth of any item is communicated through a shelf tag that essentially tells the consumer if a product is “safe” to eat, or if they should consult their doctor before ingesting.

 

The health and wellness effort represents an altruistic endeavor on the part of a retailer to help consumers purchase the most nutritionally dense foods for their money.  Unfortunately, the reality that underlies this system is flawed since most of the available data used for these systems is not designed for Health & Wellness in general much less any single rating scale.

(more…)

Bad Product Data – Risks Increase

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

3 events this week prompt yet another commentary on the risks of using CPG product information in its current state. (more…)

More on Health & Wellness

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Kid’s health, a major concernThe swirl of Health and Wellness activity continues to dominate the news in the grocery and food trade-rags, websites, blogs and even some consumer publications. This makes sense given both the real importance of helping the shopper simplify their grocery selection process and the quiet targeting of food manufacturers and retailers that is going on in both government and tort-lawyer back-rooms across the country.

(more…)

It’s The Data, Stupid!

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

Great post on the GXS blog site by Melanie Ligons on 12/17/07 (link below).

Essentially she predicts/hopes that “leading companies will step up to the plate in 2008 and address the CPG product data quality issues by taking the first steps toward implementing solid B2B Data Management programs.” (more…)

Healthy Eating Programs Depend on Unhealthy Product Information

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

There have been two major announcements about Healthy Eating programs this week offered by grocers and by a combination ofacademics and grocers. One by Yale and Topco, a service bureau for such companies as Price Chopper, Food City, Giant Eagle, Bashes, Harris Teeter, Meijer and others. The second is Delhaize, owner of Hannaford, Food Lion, and Sweet Bay in the U.S. Many other groups are working on similar efforts (more…)