Food And Games: An Old Recipe That Works Wonders In The Digital Era.

The food Industry and entertainment industry --at first sight the link between the two markets does not seems obvious.  However, Pierre Alexandre Messner, our US Business Developer explains to us why food brands should transform themselves into entertainers.

The main point that distinguishes the food industry and more broadly the FMCG from other markets, is that the purchasing funnel is extremely short in time, especially for grocery products. Consumers are often used to consume a brand, or a specific product, and when they run out of it, they purchase it again. As a result they often buy food products like a ritual, without even really thinking about it. In the best case, they only spend a few seconds in front of the shelves comparing the products options. This means that for most of the food products, the time frame to impact the purchasing decision is extremely short, maybe the shortest for all the industries.

But, there are some marketing tools that can be used to influence the purchase in the stores?

Yes, of course, we can impact the purchase decision by playing with prices and promotional offers in the stores. However regarding digital marketing, the main leverage we have on the consumer purchasing decision occurs before they step into a store. An efficient digital marketing strategy is necessary to make sure that the brand is in the consumers top of mind before he enters a supermarket. And the best way to do this is through entertainment.

Exactly. The objective of becoming an entertainer is to create a positive experience for the consumers that will be associated with your brand. This positive feeling will result in a higher probability to be in the consumers’ top of mind when they make a purchasing decision.

There are complementary ways to do this. The main rule is to deliver a good feeling to the consumer and we need to create an interaction with the brand; its contents, and its graphic universe. Digital technologies are great tools to do that, especially through online gaming and videos. These techniques can be upgraded with social media strategies that will activate social influences, and through word of mouth. The social experience helps to reinforce the positive feeling by creating a social peer recognition. This strategy has been implemented for the brands that we managed, or counseled, and we have obtained great results.

initialy published in Buzzfeed