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Packaging is Not Customer Experience
Walking down 9th Avenue in Manhattan a few days ago, I spotted this advertisement for Nescafe Taster's Choice, a popular brand of coffee.
INTRODUCING
THE GREAT NEW LOOK
OF TASTER'S CHOICE.
Displayed below this bold statement was a photo of the new packaging of Taster's Choice: a plastic container with what appeared to be a label with a slightly new graphic design.
The clincher came below the product photo, a call to action that I could only admire for its chutzpah:
Pssst...tell a friend.
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm no stranger to telling friends about products and customer experiences that I like. (I wrote a free guide to recommend products at www.unclemark.org - download the guide, if you're interested.) But telling your friends that a coffee brand changed its graphic design is absurd.
That absurdity is matched only, I think, by the marketer who spent untold thousands of dollars spreading this message all over New York City, perhaps the country. "Pssst...tell a friend that I wasted my ad budget!" would perhaps be more accurate - and get more people to participate.
Think about it from the customer's perspective. Heck, you've drunk coffee before - think about it from *your* perspective. What's the essence of the product - the customer experience - that would determine whether you say "pssst" and tell a friend? I'd guess that the list of criteria would look something like this:
1. Price
2. Taste
I doubt if "label" or "packaging" would be a top concern. After all, if a coffee brand was expensive and tasted bad but had a great logo, would you buy it? Would you recommend it to your friends?
To be fair, it is possible that better packaging could improve the customer experience of Taster's Choice. For example, if there was a "portable package" - i.e. a package where customers can open the top, pour in the hot water and go - then there might be a real customer experience improvement (as opposed to just a new color, material, or size). The key here is to base it on a real customer benefit or unmet need. Companies that are merely trumpeting their latest graphic look really are wasting their budgets.
This isn't meant to single out Taster's Choice, because I've seen scores of companies make this same mistake in the past: marketers often confuse the packaging with the customer experience.
I recently spoke at a conference on "customer experience and the brand", hosted by a group of branding experts and attended by brand managers of some of the most recognizable brands in business today. I was struck by how often the other speakers would talk about "customer experience" as though it was found mostly in the brand's packaging, color scheme, logo, or positioning in the marketplace - as opposed to the substantive part of what the customer actually consumed, tried, wore, or otherwise used.
And then I remembered: these were brand managers who have spent their careers creating the best possible *packaging* - advertising, marketing, and physical labeling - in order to convince the customer to buy. And marketers, historically, have been different from product designers.
My talk was supposed to focus on the online customer experience. So when I took the stage, I reminded the audience that there is no packaging on websites (much to the dismay of clueless marketers and designers a few years ago, who began every website with a "splash page" as though it was a glossy shrinkwrap label wrapped around the pages inside). The website is just the experience itself, which the customer could leave, at any moment, at no cost, if it's not good.
Remember this if you work online: there is no packaging on a website. Online branding should involve less emphasis on logos and color schemes, and more work on what actually improves things for the customer.
There's a lesson here for offline products, too. Marketers should know by now that customers won't be telling friends about new product labels. The customer experience isn't the promise on the label - instead, it's what the product or service actually delivers to the customer. Make *that* good, and your customer might actually tell a friend.
- - -
Update July 15: Robert Moss points us to this article from India, which provides a good counterpoint to my column above.
Seems that Taster's Choice did exactly what Mr. Hurst criticizes ("there is no packaging on websites (much to the dismay of clueless marketers and designers a few years ago, who began every website with a "splash page" as though it was a glossy shrinkwrap label wrapped around the pages inside)) since if you go to their website at www.tasterschoice.com, there's a splash page there before you can actually get to any content.
Mark, I hear what you're saying, but there was a change in the packaging which makes it easier to hold and spoon out. I know, because I recently visitd the company that makes the lids. That't all they do, make lids. While I'm not into freezed-dried coffee, I think that a bottle that's easier to hold, easier to spoon might make me think twice about the next time I'm half asleep in the morning and don't want to spend the time clean the machine and making a pot.
Regards, Kent
Kent -
Agreed - thanks for pointing that out. If it's better for the customer (especially at 6 a.m.), then that's a substantive change that's probably worth the investment.
The only remaining question, then - why didn't the advertising campaign talk about that improvement? Maybe if the ads mentioned the benefits you listed, someone would tell a friend..
-mark
Good point about the easier-to-use lid, Kent.
However, if this *is* the benefit that the company is trying to communicate, then the ad Mark saw does not convey it.
I think Mark has missed the point on the coffee packaging thing. These ads are directed at people who already buy the product, informing them of the new look so when they go to the store next time, they won't mistakenly think the store is out of their current brand and buy something else instead.
It's like saying: Datsun is now Nissan, or Pacific Bell is now SBC. It's a necessary function in a competitive marketplace, and it doesn't require interpretation in terms of customer experience.
If you were to unplug the packaging thing and plug in a new taste or a new price or a new preparation method then, yes, Mark's comments about what to emphasize and what not to are right on point.
But analyzing this ad in terms of the customer experience angle is like analyzing a football game in terms of whether the two teams' uniform colors go nicely with each other, or clash. Yes, you can see things that way, but it's not too helpful, and it's totally beside the point.
Robert
When they say "tell a friend," are they saying "tell a friend that Taster's Choice changed its packaging" or "recommend Taster's Choice to a friend." They probably want you to do both, but I think you're placing too much emphasis on the recommendation based on a packaging change. Of course most people won't recommend a coffee unless it tastes good and is reasonably priced. But I think some people may tell their friends that Taster's Choice changed its packaging simply because they know their friends drink it.
Also, what about when a major brand is changing its name and logo - the brand's "packaging"? It seems fair for a company to advertise that change when the name and logo is what most people associate with the company. A change in name and logo may not directly affect the customer's experience, but if customers can't talk about a company, can't find a product or can't do business because they don't know a company's name, there isn't much of an experience in the first place.
I would agree with you, if the name was changing... i.e. Datsun to Nissan. But the name isn't changing - it's just the shape of the container. Surely customers will still be able to find it in the store, with or without their friends' helpful hints...
I agree with Robert's interpretation. From my days in magazine research, I know that when a magazine makes a change to its logo, newsstand sales take a dive for a few months. There's some level of instant visual recognition that gets lost when you change a design. This coffee company probably wanted to prep their customers for the change to avoid this problem.
I also wonder why everyone is taking the "Psst...tell a friend" line so literally. I see it as a device for setting a mood to make the message a fraction more engaging and memorable. I can't believe for a second that the ad writers thought they were going to create a viral buzz!
One more thing--it *is* a change to the name. Before it was just Taster's Choice, with a very small Nescafe. Now the Nescafe is the dominant name, with Taster's Choice secondary. That they chose to do this simultaneously with a packaging change makes sense, and it supports the need to inform customers about the change.
Mark, I usually agree with your observations, but on this one I think they really are doing something useful for their customers.
Mark wrote, "...scores of companies make this same mistake in the past: marketers
often confuse the packaging with the customer experience."
I would argue that the packaging is very much part of the customer experience. One of the best examples I can think of is Orbit gum (http://www.wrigley.com/wrigley/products/products_orbit.asp). I know people who choose Orbit specifically because they prefer its packaging (fold over cardboard flap) to that of other gum.
If you consider the full customer experience, packaging does matter - it stands between the customer and the product. Good packaging can even entice a user to try a new product (e.g., magazine covers).
I'd agree with you, Harris - Orbit gum is a good example of packaging actually enhancing the customer experience... thanks.
I do believe packaging is important but I will still buy a product in a plain brown wrapper if it is superior to it's competition at a fair price. I think the point is made that that it is the coffee that really should matter here, not the label, graphic or packaging.
I used to get these "surveys" in the mail from a company that collected info on consumer opinions. They would send me a picture of a box of cereal and ask if I would buy it "because it tasted good" or "it was crunchy" or "it was healthy" or any number of reasons and I was supposed to determine this information solely from the picture of the box. Marketing. There IS a belief that the goal is to make you buy the product, not based on the quality of the product but on your perception of the product. The focus of many companies is NOT to make the products that you want to buy, but to make you want to buy the products they make.
Hi Mark,
I don't know how packaging sells in the USA but I just want to share something very interesting about tea, coffee, and health drink (like Nestle Milo) packaging in India.
In Indian kitchens the bottles used for packaging these products are reused for storing flour, sugar, snacks and so on. So companies run advertising campaigns that highlight only a change in packaging (a bigger bottle, a bottle with an interesting design and so on). If there are two equally good products in the same category, I have seen several instances of shoppers going for a purchase only because of the change in the packaging.
Helpful dialog. Confirms that value - of packaging or experience - remains in the eye of the beholder. And there's wide variation in perceived consumer value. Mark's correct to encourage marketers and consumers to check their assumptions about value from time to time.
The next time you hear "All new episode ... " of some TV show, ask yourself whether you've ever seen a "half-new" version? (You won't have to wait long for a promo that emphazizes ALL new. The copycat promotions blurb has become all to common.
The article by Mark Hurst, whose URL I intend to subscribe, is excellent, humerous, well written, and beautifuly articulated.
Keep 'em coming, Mark.
Best,
Menahem
Hi Mark,
Interesting! Are you provoking reactions intentionally? (this is a compliment!)
I like to pick information up visually - a guy I worked with once used to wear a mint shirt sometimes and it made me want to buy mint chocolate whenever he wore it! I see this ad stimulating interest.
Look at what A. Warholl did for Campbell's soup!
This ad is an excuse to talk to customers and I think its clever - it's more personal- people feel better about the company and the coffee because it's including them (the information isn't headline news but that's almost the point)the coffee is a big coffee & won't have changed because we can't improve on it.
Advertising is about selling and this ad is selling the latest model coffee jar - are coffee ad budgets as big/bigger than auto now?
Why not?
Re - Packaging - well I am drawn to nicer looking things! and I was asked to choose between two presents and one was badly wrapped and the other had a lot of attention paid to it - lots of extra detail - I'd go for the better one. When you wrap something you do it with someone in mind and I see this ad as a message to customers - "We really care about you" - whether the customer gets it or not.
Friends tell their friends all sorts of silly stuff so I think they are taking the mickey abit which can sort of mean they like customers really! fickle and permiscuous as they can be. Opening new coffee jars can be quite a nice experience! and nice experiences are hard to forget.
I think you do harm to your customer experience work and credibility by suggesting that packaging is not part of the customer experience.
Who drinks freeze-dried coffee in the Age of Starbucks? Before you say I’m insensitive and that $1.40 or more is too much for some people to pay for a cup of coffee, ask yourself how many people on food stamps buy cigarettes. A decent cup of coffee, like cigarettes, is an affordable luxury, and Starbucks has probably changed more people’s user experience on what a cup of coffee should taste like than any other factor.
As far as the ad, Nescafe/Taster’s Choice is running similar outdoor in Los Angeles, only they bust out the *Great new look, same (old) great taste* line without any mention of ‘Tell a friend.’ Perhaps focus groups have spun it that people in LA are not friendly or conversely are friendly (Have a nice day!) and don’t need to be told.
Which brings me to this *Tell a friend* stuff. I can’t see anyone thinking this sounds genuinely friendly or sets such a mood. I think Nescafe/Taster’s Choice believes this is how you do viral advertising; after all, they have *Preparation Tips* on their website’s main navigation. The gist of which is add boiling water and stir.
Best always,
Rob
I'm here in your weblg for the first time, and looks like i'm going to be a frequent visitor.
This time i have to disagree, packaging may not be part of custmer experience BUT it is in many ways the product seller. Let me explain, when the product is in the supermarket it has to compete with too many other marks that are trying to seduce the customer into buying it. The visual attractiviness factor of the packaging can sell the product for itself, although is the virtue of the product which make it sustain in the market.
So if is visual identificaction what marketers, publicist and brand designers are seeking then is very important to get target customers intentified with the new look, long way before it hits the stands.
Today, I past another one of their billboards; it reads:
*Introducing the great new look of Taster’s Choice.
Try not to stare, you’ll miss your turn.*
Are they kidding? This is Los Angeles. We got gigantic Angelyne billboards ( paste the following into your brower: http://www.latimes.com/la-022402angelyne,0,1167538.story ) and models modeling underwear. Stare? At what?
However, I do agree with Sosa about the importance of packaging as a seller of products. I freelance for Mattel on boys’ action toys and name new products, which is part of the packaging department. They’re very of much of the mind that having an entire aisle of shelf space should visually dominate like a billboard inside the toy store. That aside, does advertising that’s so incredulous help get attention and motivate purchases inside the store?
Sure, we’re talking about it here. Yet who really buys freeze-dried coffee? The Taster’s Choice website has a timesaving slant to it with tips on efficiency, many of which are better ways to save time than drinking such a horrible beverage. I’d love to know what the people behind Taster’s Choice really think. They’re either geniuses or bozos.
Best always,
Rob
Sort of a side comments on the new package.
If you pop it open when full, the coffee shoots out all over your counter.
The lid does not close completely to keep it fresh.
Give me back the old jar with a screw on lid that will later hold my spare pocket change.
Mathias
P.S. Freeze dried ain't that bad.