Sunday, February 21, 2010

Campbell's new label ingredient: biometrics


According to the Wall Street Journal, Campbell's is changing its iconic label in an effort to (duh) make people buy more soup. They spent two years researching package and logo designs by tracking microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate and other biometrics to see how consumers react to them. This "neuromarketing" approach is an attempt among consumer-good companies to understand how consumers respond to marketing and advertising.

In interviews, participants said the soup pictured on the can and shelf labels didn't look warm, so steam is added in the new label. And the big spoon full of soup provoked little emotional response, so it was removed.

The company hopes the label and display changes will help shoppers connect on a deeper level to the products and boost its condensed soup sales by 2% over the next two years. Hmmmmmm, good luck with that, Campbell's.

Full article here.

3 comments:

Howie at Sky Pulse Media said...

Once again all this effort only to have it torpedoed by Supermarkets. First off I do need to state I have no idea if when my Price Chopper in NY or my Ralphs/Vons etc in California do the club card deals if these are coordinated in any way with the brands themselves.

But here is how it works. Progresso and Campbells issue Sunday circular coupons which we cut out. And every Thursday we bring them to the market and we wait until a Club Card sale can be combined with the Sunday coupon.

I like both brands. Will I buy more soup? Yes when the deals match up. That is the problem when you have pretty much an exact substitute. I had Progresso today BTW for lunch.

Many CPG's have this same problem. Better off investing in Point of Sale promotions. But awesome post its very interesting stuff.

California Girl said...

Howie makes sense. Great slotting doesn't hurt either. The biometrics sounds pretty overboard for those changes. I wonder if Coca Cola used them when they created "new" Coke?

Food Farmer said...

Neuromarketing, folksonomy, blah, blah, blah. Two years in the making, they could have created and produced several new labels, put them in markets and let real consumers in real shopping situations decide for a fraction of the cost.

And more kudos to Howie, major brands have commoditized themselves by being on special half of the year. Ho hum.

When will CPG companies quit living in a bubble and come out and play with the real people?

Thanks for putting the Ogilvy post above this story.

Thanks ad broad, you keep me sane.