Once upon a time, groceries weren’t displayed on organized, easy-to-access shelves. Before the days of super stores and warehouse shopping, consumer goods were displayed on shelves behind a counter, where a store owner would grab them for a customer at his or her request. The store owner knew the shopper, and shoppers often asked for their purchases by brand name. Some women preferred Lux Soap over Ivory, some adults only smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes, and some households were loyal to Maxwell House or Folgers coffee. Shoppers made these decisions based on their perception of the product’s value, which was created as much by packaging, promotions, and advertising, as by the shopper’s experience with the product itself.
One could argue that despite growing trends such as retail brands and online commerce, shopping behaviors today are similar to those 65 years ago. Consumers still make purchasing decisions based on their perception of a product’s value. What’s changed, however, is how consumers are defining that value. For example, in a recent study by Deloitte, 41% of consumers reported they choose products based on “labels that address my health and wellness by providing more detail” and 35% of consumers surveyed described themselves as “ingredient sensitive.” In other words: the days of defining a product’s value according to packaging, promotions, and brand reputation are behind us.
This preference for product transparency is driving brands and retailers to re-think the ways they engage with consumers. For example, target markets such as millennials are technologically astute and hyper-connected, which means brands and retailers must provide product transparency in the digital arena. Label Insight’s 2017 Shopper Trends Study reports 76% of shoppers rely on online resources for information they can’t find on the package, and according to a survey by Label Insight, 46% of shoppers use their smartphone to conduct product research right there in the store aisle.
If the brand fails to provide the product information they want, shoppers will simply go somewhere else. This means a brand marketer must be aware of, and control, the information consumers can discover about their product online. One way to provide product transparency in the digital arena is to create what is referred to as the “perfect page.” The “perfect page” is essentially a website page that provides in-depth product data that enables favorable search results. This data can include everything from high-quality pictures with rollover notes to detailed product descriptions and reviews – all of which provide consumers with the product transparency they’re seeking on their buying journey.
Create a Core of Data and Assets
To create a “perfect page,” CPG companies need to have a strong, accessible core of accurate product data and brand assets. The easiest way to achieve this is through a Label and Artwork Management solution.
A SaaS-based Label and Artwork Management solution enables end-to-end workflow management, online collaborative proofing, and a Digital Asset Manager that streamline and improve the creation, approval, organization, and storage of product data and brand assets for use on a “perfect page.”
For example, automated workflow management provides CPG companies with more control over the product-data-to-digital-channel journey by ensuring every stakeholder can provide timely, in context input on product information and artwork before it is sent to digital channels.
Furthermore, powerful tools like online collaborative proofing provide stakeholders with a rapid feedback mechanism for reviews of nutrition ingredients, romance copy, product images, video, and other marketing materials – streamlining the approval process and drastically decreasing the number of approval cycles to quickly get product data and packaging artwork assets distribution-ready for all channels.
With Digital Asset Manager features in a Label and Artwork Management solution, you can store all of your product data and brand assets in one location. Rather than ask marketing, operations, and regulatory teams to search their own files for the right data and digital assets, you can simply create a single repository where the right version of each product data and label component is stored. Users can easily search, sort, and filter to quickly retrieve the asset they need to create “perfect pages,” and even better – the Digital Asset Manager protects your assets’ integrity by ensuring only those with permission can access the files.
Finally, a cutting-edge Label and Artwork Management solution such as BLUE will have established partnerships with a product content network provider like 1WorldSync. While BLUE’s advanced Label and Artwork Management solution can store the final, approved, and audited digital label and artwork files with all product information required for “perfect pages” and larger e-commerce distribution, the 1WorldSync platform can pull this product information from BLUE and distribute it across all of the CPG company’s trading networks.
The End Result
The CPG industry stands, like so many others, on the verge of a revolution in which products find new distribution channels and consumers are forever searching for the absolute in product transparency. With the right Label and Artwork Management solution in place, they can create tough-to-beat leadership positions in these channels.
To learn how to build a business case for a Label and Artwork Management solution, download this e-book: Building a Business Case for Label and Artwork Management.
