The reader of the (crisp) pack

We all know how important the description on the packet is when it comes to food. At Phipps we’ve been crunching our way through a hell of a lot of crisps lately, all in the name of research of course, to get under the skin of what drives consumer purchasing in this category. It appears semantics have never been so important when it comes to making that decision on which bag to pick up. It comes as no surprise to us food and wine PRs that descriptions are so important when selling food, as for us the language we use on a daily basis is vital in getting across key messages to the media for our clients.

Our research shows that the language used on crisp packets makes a huge difference in how consumers perceive the brand. We quizzed one hundred people, asking them to select which crisp description would make them want to purchase a bag of crisps the most. A whopping 47% of people picked the winning description ‘Full on Flavour: made from the finest ingredients. 100% natural flavour crisps’. Given that flavour and taste came up as the key motivator in crisp purchasing, we found that those descriptions not referencing flavour and provenance fell foul with our respondents.

Alongside our crisp survey we ran two in-depth focus groups. Our groups of boys and girls (aged 18-55) also showed that neither gender seem to care for health and nutrition labelling on packaging when buying sharing bags of crisps. The general consensus being that in a social occasion you are less worried about calories and salt content. Nearly all of our focus group respondents looked at labelling on 30g bags of crisps however, allowing this information to affect their purchasing decisions. With the government pushing for more nutritional information on food packs, it will be interesting to see if crisp manufacturers bring traffic light labelling to the front of sharing bags of crisps in the future.

For PRs language is our toolbox and selecting which tools to use can be the difference between a successful PR campaign and one that falls on deaf ears. No doubt the annual festival ‘Rioja Tapas Fantasticas’ which we run for Wines from Rioja wouldn’t have proved quite so successful had we named it ‘The London Tapas Festival’. Whilst consumers respond to one set of language, what can appeal to media may be quite different. Call it spin doctoring if you must, but effective PR is an art form few brands can afford to do without. 

Posted by Rachael Everitt

Drinks brands mustn’t ignore social media

So apparently social media presence is “not important” to drinks consumers according to research published in The Drinks Business. Well, we at Phipps would beg to differ and we question the one dimensional interpretation of the facts. If value for money is what matters most to consumers then are we the only ones who are tracking a dramatic increase in money-off vouchers and promotions spread via Facebook and Twitter?

Yes, the fact remains that social media rarely leads to direct sales and the research concludes correctly that social media “is not a space for hard sell”. That’s true for drinks companies and equally true for any other consumer-facing brand. Recent research from analyst house Forrester indicates that less than 2% of online orders were the result of shoppers coming from a social network (via Mashable). Brand owners need to judge social media for what it’s good at which is facilitating conversations between consumers, and between consumers and brands. If done correctly social media is invaluable in creating greater brand loyalty, encouraging repeat purchase and driving recommendation. And for what it’s worth, we think that should be important to drinks brands.  

Posted by Toby Schuster