Having talked about the lack of what the UK would view as conventional promotions in my last column, I now want to discuss that this doesn’t mean American retailers are without some mediums to impact on consumer behaviour.
There is strong social media – which tends to be localised in places, but is often very produce-centric. One retailer is currently working their way through a colour a week in produce, celebrating yellow this week. After a ‘fall’-friendly week of talking about orange the previous week, they gave a product a day and give recipe ideas and some inspiring product shots.
The use of magazines distributed in store and to loyalty card customers featuring information on seasonality and recipes is similar in style to the UK, although it varies in quality of execution. Generally own brand, which is strongly present in produce, appears at no cost to the supplier, but brands do have to pay for the privilege.
Store positioning is the most vital tool – in their extra space they have much more mobile central fixtures and freestanding display areas so ‘crop flushes’ or seasonal products can use positioning within the store to gain advantage. They also utilise manpower-heavy product promotions.
On a weekend I have counted one local store with five tasting stations sampling new or seasonal products, including produce.
For example, they produced great sombrero-wearing theatre for the launch of the Hatch pepper season – the product was in all major retailers, but our local Wegmans had a front-of-store fixture, and it wasn’t just to buy the produce but had ideas for what to do, as well as selling related products.
Their team had made fresh limited editions of cheese and Hatch pepper dip, and four other consumer-ready products. There is a real difference between the store supported, overhead banners, large space designated promotions and what is often the case in the UK, external or supplier-provided pop-up stands, which are only as good as the agency staff who supply them. These can be amazing, but can also be lacklustre.
Packaging, brand, merchandising and retail all play their part too, but really deserve their own columns for further expansion.
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