Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

If They don't see it, it will not Encourage Purchase

Recently I was invited to speak at the Paperboard Packaging council's convention in Washington, D.C. Besides meeting some very fine people and having a great time, I had the opportunity to view packages submitted for their annual awards. The samples covered a wide range of types and product categories. Some were real works of art. But as a market researcher, one in particular caught my attention. While this particular carton was anaward-winning package, I was not looking at it through the eyes of the judges. The judges were looking at the designs, colors, print quality, etc. On the other hand I was looking at it from a marketing perspective.

What caught my attention was the addition of a new tag line for this brand. I assume the tag line was tested and the results were favorable. My concern was with the location of the tag line on the cartons. I also assume that the company tested the tag line not only in the absolute but also in context with the carton. That is, on the cartons as I had viewed them and the results were favorable.

My concern is that they probably did not evaluate this execution in context with market. If I had to guess, they probably had a single carton displayed on a table in front of respondents and asked them what they saw, how well they liked the brand, the probability of purchase, and another 50 other questions. The only place the new tag line was printed was on the top of the carton. In the market, these cartons will be displayed at approximately eye level with one carton placed on top of the other. When the shelf is full, shoppers will not see the top of a single carton. Therefore the tag line would not be seen until a carton was taken from the shelf. In all probability the tag line will probably not be seen until the shopper is at home opening the carton. If it was noticed at all.

I firmly believe that carton communication should be evaluated in the typical locations of sale. It is very important that the physical environment of the stores be taken into consideration in the evaluation of effectiveness.

The company probably spent a great deal of time and effort evaluating the consumers' reaction to the addition of the tag line and probably even made a sales forecast relative to the addition. A part of the evaluation process should have been the assessment of the percent of shoppers seeing the tag line, when they saw it, and finally the shoppers' reaction to the tag line.

This initiative should have been assessed in actual stores using real shoppers, real store shelves, and all the other variables encountered in the store environment. I doubt very much if it was really assessed in the store environment. I plan to attempt to determine just how the tag line was evaluated. 


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