Novelty vs Familiarity – How the science of memory could help us to build greater engagement with our shoppers

Humans. We’re an odd bunch. As creatures of habit, we’ve been typically attracted to familiarity. Tracing it back, it seems that familiarity has always signalled safety – don’t stray too far from the pack into unknown territory, you could get eaten!

But things have thankfully changed (when it comes to not getting eaten). Fast forward to the modern day and who should slide into our DMs but “novelty”. People want to create more memories and seeking out and doing new, novel, interesting things seems to be one route in.

If we can geek out for just one second the science here seems to suggest that experiencing novelty induces dopamine release in the hippocampus, which in turn triggers stronger memory consolidation and memory persistence. It’s why all those hundreds of daily commutes we’ve done typically blur in to one homogenous blob in our brain. Yet that memory of the one-time our train was cancelled may linger a little stronger – who knows perhaps it forced us to get off somewhere unfamiliar or God forbid strike up a conversation with a stranger to ask for help (or perhaps we just booked an uber).

But what does any of this have to do with FMCG I hear you say?

Well at Melli Design I’ve recently been spending a little bit of time in the confectionery aisle – it’s a huge ￡6bn, 98%+ penetration, highly expandable purchase and in my local ‘big store’ I was confronted with confectionery products popping up over 28 bays. It blew my mind a little to be honest!

There’s no doubt though that the government’s high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) regulations have rocked this area a little harder than the rest. In restricting the visual presence at tills and gondola ends, it almost seems to have been the catalyst that gave birth to the exponential increase in the amount of brand blocked, highly shopper activated bays in this category. There’s no doubt it’s benefiting the retailer (who get the activation fees) and for the manufacturer that piece of cardboard acts as a protective macro-space fortress, with smaller players falling into the peripheral moat, only to be drowned out.

But what does the shopper get? Well for a time, perhaps some novelty against the backdrop of what is likely to be a fairly familiar space. There’s no denying they can be brilliant. Sub-consciously like witchcraft, driving both mental and physical availability by increasing the propensity to be thought about and being equally prominent to find all in one impressive go. It can at times also be a gentle and much needed nudge of disruption against the backdrop of an often-monotonous shopping trip.

However, perhaps as time goes by, that dopamine inducing brand blocked fixturisation runs the risk of becoming wallpaper as our brain cleverly places it into the ‘everyday’ bucket and when there’s often so much of it all at once in our faces, a purchase paralysis induced anxiety could kick in. So, if we are in pursuit of a highly engaged shopper that’s forming new and stronger memories of us then we must carefully walk this line, finding a balance that works for all.

There’s clearly no one solution and naturally this differs by category, but these shopper activated bays as static entities must surely have a novelty impact lifespan and the good old-fashioned advice of quality over quantity feels like a sensible starting point here.

Some things to think about perhaps:

1) Short Term – Establish The Goals

o?? This of course is very context dependent and who knows, perhaps there aren’t any overt over-arching customer specific objectives (there doesn’t always have to be), but it doesn’t hurt to think about them. As a minimum, understanding the baseline category metrics such as frequency of purchase and in-store conversion to establish how often the category/ bay is shopped and by what percentage of shoppers will likely give an indication of how long the novelty of the experience may endure. It will also make any later post review analysis much easier to undertake if you wish to establish the quantitative impact. The nature of your product category may also dictate the type of activation best explored – are you a host, a complimentary component or the final mission solution?

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2) Medium Term – Trial And Error

o?? Start giving things a go to see if shoppers respond or not. As part of this stage, it feels sensible to establish if there are any ways if possible in your category to co-ordinate cross-manufacturer shopper activated brand plans in order to keep things fresh for your shoppers whilst ensuring all other stakeholders remain happy too. This could perhaps look like seasonal/ event-based rotations and ever-changing shopper activated ‘spotlights’ throughout your category aisle to create a sense of category comfort whilst introducing a novel element of excitement every now and again.

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3) Longer Term – Think Really Big

o?? As stores and technology inevitably develop, are there opportunities for more multi-sensory shopper activation to be explored in your area? About 80% of what we learn from the world is mediated through vision, but recent research indicates that it’s olfaction (smell) that runs on a superhighway to the brain which in turn triggers powerful memories. Often the smell of food is just as much, if not more emotionally triggering than the sight of it. This may seem a little woo woo right now, but it feels like something worth considering as the battle for shoppers attention and their memory of your brand will inevitably continue raging on.

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Until next time, speak soon…

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