Shopper marketing for CNY - who does it better ?

As a Millennial with a daunting task of keeping the Facebook platform alive, I was recently scrolling aimlessly and was then served an odd consumer research question in the newsfeed; and reading that question made me a bit sad. Have a look.

Note: This is going to be a bit 龙-龙 (Long Long) but stimulus rich article, focused on marketing efforts to attract Chinese New Year (CNY) shoppers.

I assume one the brand teams in the list below above to fund this wishful query after much deliberation. A typical Facebook user would not object, but as a marketer I felt this deserves some commentary. To put it bluntly, this is wasteful research. For the mystery brand funding it, the ranking is likely going to be in the same order as consumer total brand awareness or TOMA. And any variation will be indistinguishable from noise.

Instead of dissecting the research approach further, I will take the liberty to go upstream towards the intended business challenge hidden in the research question and explore that instead.

As these are beverages with broad all-year consumption habits, let us assume that all these brands want to 'Win shopper preference during CNY consumption period.'

So what's next ?

For this objective, you'll rapidly reach the conclusion that in-store visibility is critical for expanding shopper penetration and hence incremental block displays + promotional offer are needed to trigger consumption. So we will take a giant leap from the research question to THIS question: 'Within CNY shopping period, how can you maximize the impact of your brand block displays to increase shopper penetration ?"

So to further dig into this, over the weekend I took pictures of a wide range of in-store displays in Singapore, all within the same hypermarket. And the displays are very interesting, throwing up some interesting lessons. Let's have a look at the executions together, shall we ?

Firstly, if your category doesn't intuitively allow it then don't waste effort to make convoluted connections with CNY. As an example, this Colgate display during CNY was not about CNY, yet the claim and display were impactful. And the Colgate brand team was brave not to mutilate their claim into something like 'This festive season let prosperity bloom but not plaque'.

If you do want to just bring in CNY festive cues, ensure your brand & message is still dominant and not overpowered by thematic elements. 2 brands from the same category (Dettol vs. Lifebuoy) with contrasting executions are exemplifying my point.

Now let's look at the beverage category. A long aisle in the Fair Price outlet had all the brands mentioned above and more: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Yeos, Marigold, Pokka and Milo.

Note: I don't have any retail sales data or Shopper eye tracking data, so this is my crude subjective assessment and blunt ranking. Arguments are encouraged!

Consolation Prize: Pokka

Pokka block display features a generic multi-variant pack visual, standard brown full case SKUs, supplanted with a complicated shopper contest. While they have invested in precious CNY block display, with this execution they are likely to attract fewer new users and hence have poorer ROI.

Joint Bronze Award: Yeos, Marigold, Pepsi

Many brands have converged to this safe zone of delivering warm fuzzy CNY wishes to the consumer. When the visual was developed in HQ, I am sure it met the checklist. But within the store, I suspect the shopper is thinking "Thanks for the cheerful greetings, generic drinks brand."

In this group, Pepsi products have festive designs, but the overall display impact is lower in contrast with Coca Cola. I predict these displays will have average performance, nothing too different from their non festive display uplifts.

Silver Prize: Coca-Cola

I really like Coca-Cola's instore message - the only beverage linking their product consumption during CNY in a direct way. A classic Category Entry Point principle executed well. CNY festive product sets are eye-catching: festive designs, multiple variants, but bundled in bright red boxes. The buy & win contest communication is done in a very simple way and with very lucrative and thematic offers (88 Gold Plated Coke dragon cans!)

In my complicated tabulation they lost by a sliver to the top contender.

Gold Prize: Milo

Milo's display carries an irresistible combination of distinctive high volume festive packs with CNY dragon design beautifully integrated with brand cues + a thematic contest built into the Point of sale design in an unmissable way.

Milo wasn't in the original Facebook research list. But if this is the quality of their nationwide execution, I predict they will have an outstanding CNY sales uplift, at the expense of other beverage brands.

Executing a quick tactical CNY display requires money. But this quality of execution, from the festive pack design, to the attractive thematic contest, to the distinctive in-store point of sale requires great strategic clarity and attention to detail. So I tip my metaphorical hat, cavity prone teeth and beverage filled paunch to the Milo team for their stunning activation.

Milo team - you can collect the CNY Oscar from me anytime. In return just send across a couple of those 10g gold bars.

Image source: Displays at Fair Price Xtra, Kallang Wave, Singapore

Special thanks to Siew Ching Ngui for providing the translations.