Products from leading brands Old El Paso, Smith's, Lipton and Green's were celebrated as the four most popular FMCG launches for the month of January 2016.
PLAY Market Research’s January Shopper Community results show the new directions the brands have taken with their packaging.
Chris Thomas, founder at PLAY, said Old El Paso's Restaurante Soft Taco Kit took out top honours for its popularity with end consumers.
“A whopping 84 per cent of survey respondents said they would purchase this product at the concept stage, which suggests this is a brilliant product backed by some great packaging,” Thomas says.
“Mexican foods have undergone a bit of a resurgence in supermarkets in recent years, so we see the premiumisation of Old El Paso as a trend that will likely continue as the brand seeks to expand upmarket.”
TWEAK THAT TEA
Placing second was Lipton Quality Black Tea Bags, while fourth place was taken out by Green’s Classic Chocolate Cake.
“These two products are interesting in that they both had relatively low uniqueness scores, represented very high value for money, and more people wanted to buy the products after they tried them,” Thomas says.
“This is a trend we generally see with home brand products, with the inverse being true for branded products.
‘In the case of Green’s Classic Chocolate Cake, purchase intent jumped 13 per cent from the concept stage to 85 per cent after trial.
“This suggests to us that communication and branding tweaks may be necessary to make sure these stand-out products end up in people’s trolleys.”
BRAND TEAMING
PLAY says more manufacturers are teaming up with other brands to create a more compelling offer, such as Bulla and Bailey’s liqueur ice cream effort in 2015.
“As evidenced by high uniqueness and concept purchase interest, Smith’s KFC Zinger Crisps [which placed third] clearly grabbed the attention of our shopper community,” says Thomas.
“While they loved the novelty of the brand collaboration, it might have been too effective – some of our respondents said they wanted more in the flavour department.”
PLAY Market Research’s POP UP Shopper Community is a syndicated product testing platform for FMCG companies in Australia.
The Best of the Rest results will be announced soon.
