Connected sevices – spotlight on the opportunities for marketing FMCG products
Babita Earle, digital strategy director GfK NOP, on why FMCGs should be paying attention to mobile…
It is already widely accepted that the purchase journey towards medium to high consideration purchases such as mobile phones, cameras or holidays, has altered greatly over the last few years.
Consumers have access to almost limitless information through online sources about a product before they select it – detailed product specs, review and pricing information – and thanks to the explosion of connected devices they can tap in to those sources at any time, in almost any location. However, to date less emphasis has been placed on the impact of connected devices on the selection and purchase of products at lower pricepoints within the FMCG sector.
FMCG products may still be purchased predominantly in-store, but according to GfK’s Savvy Shopper study more than 50% of smartphone owners use their mobile internet facility whilst shopping to gather product information, making it time to examine the opportunities this offers for FMCG brands.
The IAB recently conducted an innovative project with GfK on connected consumers – those who access the internet through both mobile and static devices – which incorporated survey and digital behavioural data, called ‘MOJO’ (the Mobile Online Journey Observation).
The outputs of the study shed light on how consumers use the internet, both mobile and fixed, to help them make their product choices across the spectrum of FMCG products: Food & drink, Beauty & bathroom, Babycare and Household products. The results highlight some golden opportunities for FMCG brands and retailers to engage with their potential clients online that are not yet being used to their full potential.
Consumers look to digital for price, location and loyalty information
FMCG retailers have the opportunity to use digital platforms to encourage customers into their stores and can then turn to mobile internet channels to reassure those customers that they are getting the best deal once in-store.
Almost one third of smartphone owning FMCG purchasers search for information on their product choices prior to purchase. Unsurprisingly this is a lower proportion than the consumers who search for higher consideration purchases, and the type of information that consumers are looking for is substantially different. While purchasers of medium to high consideration products will extensively read user and expert reviews before making their purchase, FMCG purchasers focus their search attention on the purchase process, looking for the best promotion or discount on a particular product and identifying local retailers with the best loyalty schemes that sell the product they want.
On the go searches have the potential to directly influence which product gets dropped into the shopping trolley. FMCG is the only product sector that sees mobile search results being more influential than PC search results – as was the case for both Food & drink and Babycare products, reflecting the trend to use smartphones in-store.
Still room for growth in digital advertising investment
Digital devices prove to be a highly effective platform for advertising FMCG products with strong levels of influence across the devices. However recall levels indicate that there is room for FMCG marketers to increase their presence on digital advertising formats.
Once again the mobile device shows that it holds a unique position in the life of the FMCG shopper, with advertising on mobile being slightly more influential than on other devices for all four FMCG categories. Of those who remembered seeing an ad for Babycare products on their mobile, 68% identified the ad as extremely or very influential – with results for the other FMCG categories all coming in at over 56%, indicating that the ads they had seen were considered highly influential by the consumers.
Smartphone owning consumers were significantly more likely to have recalled seeing an ad on their mobile or PC for Food & drink and Beauty & bathroom products than almost any other category. However with ad recall on connected devices peaking at 16% it is clear that there is room for FMCG marketers capitalise on the effectiveness of the digital advertising channels and develop their use across the range of devices.
Mobile social networking contact highly influential
Social networking has a valuable role to play in FMCG product selection with the roles of mobile and static devices complementing each other effectively.
Consumer recall of FMCG products mentioned on social networks is higher on static devices than mobile. This is particularly true for the personal products, such as Babycare (which sees the highest recognition with levels of recall of presence on social networks in line with high consideration products like holidays and technology products) and Beauty and Bathroom.
The other two categories, Household Products and Food & Drink, see lower levels of recall of a presence on social networks. Nonetheless, any contact with products in this environment is extremely effective, particularly if made on a mobile.
Of those consumers who had noticed social media presence of Food & Drink products on their mobile via social networks 61% felt this contact to be highly influential, with Household Products similarly impacting 60% of those coming into contact with a brand. These levels of influence were among the highest for all the categories covered in the study.
Evidently both brands and retailers stand to gain valuable attention from consumers by implementing social network strategies that encourage satisfied customers to share their positive experiences of a product through their social networks. The influence of those contacts will be maximised by tailoring to suit the specific FMCG category and targeting by device where possible.
Alex Kozloff, senior mobile manager at the IAB who commissioned the project said: “This study shows very persuasively how FMCGs should be paying attention to mobile – and that no purchase is too small to be influenced by digital channels. FMCGs can use mobile as part of their strategy in a whole variety of ways – from social, to vouchering and loyalty to the purchase itself. The FMCG brands and retailers that sell them who recognise this and adapt and optimise the customer experience on mobile will no doubt be the long term winners.”
A note on the research
The data in this article has come from the IAB’s ‘MOJO’ project – the Mobile Online Journey Observation (MOJO) study, which was delivered by GfK’s Digital research team and looks to understand how mobile and PCs are changing and influencing the ways in which consumers buy products.
Over 800 smartphone owners were interviewed about the purchase journey of their most recently purchased products. Furthermore, the purchase behaviours of 60 Android owners were tracked across mobile and PC (using GfK’s ConnectedLife Panel) for one month and in some cases re-contacted for tele-depth interviews to further understand their journeys.
Full results from the project are available here for IAB members.
Four short videos documenting customer journeys for connected consumers across a variety of product categories can be viewed here.