The Healthy Marketing Team works with Food & Beverage Companies, Ingredients Manufacturers and Innovators around the world.

Everywhere we go, our Clients are looking for faster, more focused research to guide their new concept development without delaying their speed to launch.

RAPID Research

That’s why we’ve introduced RAPID Research - a collection of tailored investigative approaches to enable you to refine your new product development without delays and at a cost that fits your budget.

We’ll tailor an approach to your project

Every project is different and has specific needs. We’ll work with you to find the right approach:

RAPID Vox Pops - instant consumer reactions captured for you

RAPID Vox Pops: Get an instant reaction from your target Consumer.  We capture their response to your ideas, topics and concepts on video. There’s no quicker way to gauge an initial response. It’s not scientific but the HMT have often discovered new concerns and sharpened concepts with these instant reactions which capture the richness of Consumer views.

RAPID Stakeholder Interviews: The HMT speak to your Senior Management Stakeholders to ensure they’re on-side with your project and gather their knowledge and expertise to ensure it’s included in your delivery.

RAPID Panels: Wherever you are launching, we can assemble groups so you can get numbers to quantify your decision making on new concepts.

RAPID Groups: Not attempting to substitute full Discussion Groups, these are quick sessions which enable a fast assessment of an idea before refining concepts ahead of full Qualitative Groups. Sometimes they enable you to explore views in additional markets, sometimes it’s an advanced session in the key market you are investigating.

RAPID Co-Creation Workshops: Once we’ve started towards a new concept, sometimes the best people to refine the ideas are the Consumers themselves. The HMT can recruit the right people and pre-test and shape your concepts before you incur production costs.

RAPID Research - wherever you need it

RAPID Taste Tests: Possibly the ultimate test of all. Why progress if your Consumer doesn’t love the taste? The HMT can help you investigate their response and move forward to an improved prototype.

Every project is tailored to your needs. Wherever you need the investigation, and at a speed and price to fit into your project.

Whichever approaches we use, you can be confident of “Better targeted products, faster to market.”

For more information contact Sam Waterfall at the Healthy Marketing Team.

sam@healthymarketingteam.com

+44 20 7814 1937

RAPID Research - precision investigations at a speed and price to fit your project

1 glass of Innocent smoothie = 2 of your 5-a-day. Simple. So what should you be saying?

So maybe this is a genius approach to on-pack communication from those bright sparks over at Fruit Towers?

The Government 5-a-day campaign is well known. So why not ride the trend?

1 glass of this Innocent Smoothie is the equivalent of 2 of your recommended 5-a-day fruits and vegetables. So why not write it on the pack and let everyone know?

At the Healthy Marketing Team we promote 5 strategies for effective launches or effective communications for healthy brands. One of the most satisfying of the 5 has to be “Leveraging Hidden Nutritional Assets”. That is tell your consumer about the good things you already have in your product!

This is a simple execution of that strategy by Innocent. I’d love to know the result on sales, but I suspect it will be positive.

Which brings me to my point for you…

What could you add to your pack?

What could you say about what you already have that would increase the appeal of your product?

Are you overlooking an obvious message which consumers are actually looking out for?

For help identifying your potential hidden nutritional assets and to learn about the power of the other 4 Innovation Strategies, contact the Healthy Marketing Team.

sam@healthymarketingteam.com

Follow me on Twitter @sam_waterfall

Trust. McDonald's gets it. Do you?

A few weeks ago I blogged about the importance of trust for Food & Beverage brands. Well I’m back for more. And this time I’m even more passionate about my subject.

Back then I was referring to a couple of examples, brought to our attention in the national press. Wall’s Lincolnshire Sausages - made with sausage from Germany and Poland. And Cheddar Cheese ‘packed in the UK’ (but from a dairy in Latvia).

The problem is not about importing

Now let me be clear. I have no issue with importing good quality and cost effective products from other countries. That is, after all, the very foundation of trade and the core module of Economics 101 (economically we should each do what we do best to create a Consumer Surplus so we can trade and create value).

The problem is when brands or retailers mis-lead consumers

As our Friend, and fellow food champion, Rob Ward, points out in his campaign for honest labelling: “Did you know a Pork Pie labeled as ‘British Produced’, can have imported pork? Or that Norwegian Salmon can be smoked in Scotland and called Scottish Salmon. Or that Beef reared in England can be slaughtered in Scotland and called Scottish Beef?”

Trust = Reliability + Delight

Smart Brand Owners are (finally) seeing the short-sightedness of this cost cutting

Business Week ran a special report on the 100 Best Global Brands in September this year. In it, the lead article was called “The Great Trust Offensive” (Overdue in my opinion) Interviewed for the piece, McDonald’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, Mary Dillon said, “Trust and transparency [are] more important to us than ever.”

After years of fending off critics, McD’s has finally decided to change tack, and has started to enter the conversation - even engaging with PETA on animal welfare. In 2007 I witnessed the launch of their ‘Quality Scouts’ initiative where consumers could walk every step and see every transparent detail of the McDonald’s supply chain and report back on the surprisingly good ….well… everything. You can see it all now at their Make Up Your Own Mind website: www.makeupyourownmind.co.uk

I attended a McDonald’s supplier conference in Lisbon, Portugal back in 2006 when I worked for Kraft Foods (supplying Rainforest Alliance Certified, Kenco Sustainable Development Coffee to McDonald’s Restaurants).

What I saw was amazing…

Far from being the ‘bad guy’ the popular press has been so keen to expound, McDonald’s was demanding quality, sustainability and the highest ethics from every supplier. At McDonald’s they are building Consumer trust from the ground up - and, trust me, it was **Magical** to see.

More recently, in an even more overt move to share their approach, Heather Oldani, U.S. Communications Director at McDonald’s leaked their Social Media Strategy online. As you can imagine, it was Twittered, Tweeted and Re-Tweeted around the blogosphere before you could say “Do you want fries with that?”

Is it working?

Is it ever! Consumers are demanding it. Consumers are telling companies “If you aren’t open with me, I won’t trust you.” It’s counterproductive to fight that. The Golden Arches have come a long way since Morgan Spurlock tried to ‘Supersize’ himself in 2004.

David Kiley and Burt Helm report in their Business Week article that according to global consulting firm Reputation Institute, McDonald’s has not only grown its business through value pricing during the recession, but it’s strengthened its overall brand image too: +8%pts to 63% since 2007 making McDonald’s one of the fastest gainers (and though still slightly lower than average for all companies - just think where they’ve come from!)

How can you make it happen for your brand?

Wennstroms Four Factors of Success Book

Here at the Healthy Marketing Team we specialise in brand positioning. Wennstrom’s Four Factors of Success include a Factor specifically examining Brand Trust. We work with out Clients through Rapid Research and Consumer Co-creation Workshops to engage consumers’ hearts and minds in decoding and identifying the components of brand trust before building them into brand propositions and brand communications.

To find out how we can build consumer trust into the very core of your brand identity, contact me at sam@healthymarketingteam.com.

You can follow my healthy marketing updates on Twitter @sam_waterfall

Final Call for Sponsors for the 2010 HealthFocus Global Shopper Trends Survey

I’ve recorded this video for you on Sunday evening because I don’t want you to miss out! The deadline for Custom Questions in the 2010 survey is 17 December 2009! (9 December 2009 for China).

I’ve been working closely with HealthFocus International for over 2 years and the consumer understanding and insight available from their Global Surveys is second to none.  That’s why when I’m working with new Clients or speaking a conferences I tend to describe the HealthFocus information as “Healthy Marketing 101″ - it’s the starting point for learning about the way consumers are shopping health.

Of course the fact is that it’s far more than “Healthy Marketing 101″ - for sure it’s trusted by many of the world’s leading food and ingredient manufacturers to guide their innovation and brand communication. But just because it’s used by the biggest and the best, doesn’t mean that it’s prohibitively expensive  - because the survey is syndicated the cost is shared between its many sponsors enabling HealthFocus to offer entry level pricing options for 1 country from as low as US $20,000.

In this short video I explain:

What makes the survey so unique

What the survey covers - including the widely used HealthFocus Segmentation (Healers, Managers, Strugglers, etc.) as well as the new Gatekeeper Segmentation to help us Marketers communicate to parents buying for their children.

How you can ask proprietary custom questions

The flexible payment options to fit your 2009 / 2010 budgets

How you can sign up and get involved

Take 5 mins and watch the video. If you are launching or supporting a food & beverage brand in 2010 and beyond this is a $20,000 investment which will save you many times that in shopper understanding and more targeted communication.

Of course we don’t leave you with a Survey Report - HealthFocus International has appointed The Healthy Marketing Team as their Official Global Implementation Partners. We work with you and the new data from the survey and the trended data from previous surveys to create a road map for your brand and your innovation. It’s a proven approach which works around the world.

Call me on +44 (0) 20 7814 1937 or email sam@healthymarketingteam.com to arrange a telecon with Steve Walton (HealthFocus International General Manager) and me - we can confirm your company’s place in the 2010 survey.  I look forward to hearing from you to discuss your survey requirements.

Be part of the HealthFocus 2010 Global Survey

The 2010 Survey will be in:

Australia | Brazil | Canada | China | France | Germany | India | Indonesia | Italy | Japan | Mexico | Netherlands | Philippines | Poland | Russia | Saudi Arabia | Spain | UK

There is also a separate Nordic Survey covering:

Denmark | Finland | Norway | Sweden - contact me directly for details. Deadline 17 December 2009.

Nordic Markets Map

Mix1 Health Drinks

A great example of a health drink and of effective health communication.  If we use Peter Wennstrom’s FourFactors Model to analyse this we see:

1) It’s NEEDED by a specific group of Consumers: Busy / Active people who believe they don’t have time for a full meal but who value excellent nutrition.

2) Each drink in the range is packed with carefully selected INGREDIENTS. The specific combination of ingredients is determiend to give the benefit desired by the target consumer.

3) The ingredients deliver a compelling BENEFIT which is easily understood and highly appealing to the time-starved, health-conscious consumer.

4) The BRAND may be the weakest element here, but it’s still pretty trustworthy. They only do this range of drinks and they are experts in blending high quality ingredients for your life on the go.

You can find out more about the Mix1 Brand at www.mix1life.com and there are several videos by their founder explaining the drinks and there benefits on You Tube.

These bottles survived the Taste Test too.

I have to say I’m impressed. I wish they were available in the UK!

For more Healthy Marketing Update subscribe to this blog or you can follow Sam Waterfall, Senior Consultant at The Healthy Marketing Team, on Twitter  @sam_waterfall

Here’s Mix1’s Dr James explaining Antioxidants on YouTube:

In the Food & Beverage business we see a lot of trends.  Right now, however, you’d be hard pushed to find a trend more prevalent and all pervasive than consumers’ desire to avoid the ‘nasties’, the added and the chemical.

Consumers are crying out for authentic,  natural and products free from preservatives.

According the latest HealthFocus Global Shopper Survey, fear of the accumulation of toxins in the body tops the list of shoppers’ biggest concerns (47% in 2008).

Whether ‘toxins’ are additives, E-numbers, insecticides sprayed on crops or even GMO - one thing is clear, purity and unadulterated food are in demand.

Buying lunch in a restaurant in the US in October I was given the potato chips featured in this post as part of my ‘meal deal’.  These ‘All Natural’ potato chips have ‘no cholesterol’ and ‘no trans fats’ … and as you’ll see on the video they product developers didn’t stop there to convince consumers of the ‘good-for-you’ status of these Kettle Chips. On the back of the pack they continue to explain that they were making things with natural ingredients before it even became a trend!

To find out more about the latest trends in global food and beverages contact HealthFocus and to find out how you can integrate the emerging trends into your new product development contact the Healthy Marketing Team.

Today's supplement user is less extreme and more mainstream. Now even amateurs are taking sports nutrition seriously.

Here at the Healthy Marketing Team we’ve been watching the mainstreaming of health for many years.

But when we start to see certain categories entering the accessible, the mainstream and the day-to-day, we know that something new is really happening.

Muscle Milk is the perfect example of this.

Until recently supplements were considered to extreme for many.

Until very recently, products for Muscle Development and Sports Performance had been the preserve of extreme sports enthusiasts and the few consumers on the very periphery of the mass market.  But now a growing number of brands - led by the likes of Optimum Nutrition and BSN in the USA and Maximuscle in the UK have begun the mainstreaming of sports nutrition.

One element of the exclusivity was the mega-sized tubs used to contain the Whey Protein and other formulations. However, in 2009 we see the rise of the Ready To Drink sub-category and the use of Tetra Pak Prisma packaging to make the sector not more accessible but also more normal.

Muscle Milk - sustained energy with mainstream messaging

Combine the new style packaging with the rightbrand and on pack imagery (non-extreme Men’s Health-style 6-packs, and trim waists), the right language (’MILK’ / sustained energy drink) the right ingredients (Whey Protein) and the right benefit claims (lactose free / high protein) and the product has brought the once extreme to a fridge near you and me.

Perhaps the most mass market element of all is the flavour: Chocolate. So how did it stand up to my taste test? Well I can’t say I’ll be rushing for another pack, but if you are committed to the performance results the product is promising you may be prepared to make some concessions on taste? It still tastes like a whey protein muscle drink to me - but I personally believe that this taste contributes to my belief in the effectiveness of a product like this.

Overall, the product is a very strong proposition - combining all of  Wennstrom’s FourFactors of Success to target the demanding and uncompromising, busy ‘Manager’ Segment.

In this video blog I show you the details of a 4-Pack I picked up in Tampa, Florida while I was visiting HealthFocus (providers of the leading global shopper health & nutrition survey) in St. Petersburg.

Wall's 'Lincolnshire' Sausages - with meat from Germany & Poland?

On 7 November 2009 The Daily Telegraph reported that ‘Lincolnshire’ sausages sold by one of Britain’s most famous food brands are actually made with frozen pork from Germany.

Now it’s not that the meat is from so called ‘intensive farming’ or that it’s from Germany (or Poland which was also mentioned), rather that the front of pack is telling me a different story.

I believe firmly that marketing is about story telling - but let’s tell good stories, not ‘tall’ stories.

As the article points out, there is nothing illegal about this sourcing practice. But in my mind it’s not about the legality. It’s about the spirit. Whether you see this as a labelling loop hole in need of closing or just an undisclosed and unimportant fact to me it’s misleading and missing an opportunity to give consumers the authentic story they are looking for.

My point is that when a brand ‘fails’ to disclose this kind of detail - or leads me to believe that a product is something that it is not, I start to wonder, what else is this brand not telling me?

As a Brand your most important asset is your brand equity and it’s associated brand trust - the hard earned goodwill built up in the minds (and maybe even hearts) of your consumers over time.

Consumers are increasingly aware of the supply chain - and as it becomes ever more transparent these ‘little’ details mean more. Enough for consumers to stop eating sausage? Probably not. Enough for them to pick another brand? Maybe.

Cheddar cheese from Latvian dairies... 'packaged' in the UK

Maybe these should be ‘Lincolnshire Recipe’ sausages? Made faithfully following a traditional Lincolnshire recipe?

And as if that wasn’t enough, on 15 November the same paper reported on ‘British’ cheddar… made in Latvian dairies. This was another part of the Sunday Telegraph’s campaign for clearer labelling on food.

Apparently in Britain we import 40% of our cheddar. No problem. Just don’t label it ‘packaged in the UK’ and fail to mention it’s imported.

Again, like our sausages, it’s trying to tell one story when the reality is very different. Consumers trying to shop for reduced food miles are misled by this wording.

The result, when we find out (and we always find out in the end) we trust your brand a little bit less. Can’t we build our food brands on the truth? Please?

Don’t you want the food brands you buy to tell you the truth about their entire supply chain?

Brand Trust is just one of Wennstrom’s FourFactors of Success. To discover details about all 4, click here and learn about the key drivers of Brand Trust as well as Who Needs the Product, If they Accept the Ingredient and whether they Understand the Benefit.

Sam Waterfall on 'Better Targeted Products, Faster to Market'

On Tuesday 24 November, Healthy Marketing Team Senior Consultant, Sam Waterfall is to present a keynote address to the Health Food Manufacturers’ Association (HFMA) in London.

The HFMA has been the voice of the natural health industry since 1965. In November 2009 the Autumn Workshop will focus on “The Challenge of Innovating in the current Regulatory & Economic Environment”.

Sam Waterfall will focus on the need for an ‘innovation culture’ within businesses seeking to develop new products, brands and ideas as the UK emerges from recession. He will explore 4 types of organisation - each with its strengths and each with particular challenges to be addressed in order to deliver ‘Better Targeted Products, Faster to Market’.

Sam will explore examples of how to deliver the highly regard idea of ‘Open Innovation’ looking at the key elements which must be in place as well as some of the barriers to its successful implementation.

Sam will also reveal the Healthy Marketing Team’s new “Healthy Innovation Model” - a proven 5 part approach to delivering successful innovations.

Further details can be found at http://www.hfma.co.uk/docs/HFMA_Autumn_Workshop_flyer_24.11.09.pdf

Final Call for Sponsors for the 2010 HealthFocus Global Shopper Trends Survey.

In Jan/Feb the HealthFocus Survey will be conducted across 18 Countries including ‘incredible India’.  Here’s my quick video blog from the breath-taking Taj Mahal in Agra.

The survey is the longest running of its kind anywhere and unique in its ability to present trended data across the key topics of most interst to Food & Beverage brand and ingredients manufacturers.

The survey will continue to update you on the latest health and nutrition points of concern, issue, and problem as well as taking a deeper looking into some of today’s most burning issues - sustainability, packaging, waste, organic and much more.

You’ll also find out how the HealthFocus Segments (Managers, Healers, Investors, etc. ) are shopping differently after the Global Crisis, as well as getting an update on the changes to the Gatekeeper Segmentation which tells us Marketers how to communicate with parents buying for their children.

Don’t miss your chance to ask proprietary custom questions to the primary grocery shoppers in your target markets. Find out what they are thinking, what they want and what they are avoiding in 2010.

Sign up before the 17 December Deadline (9 December for China).

For more information and to arrange a personal telephone conference with Sam Waterfall of the HMT and HealthFocus General Manager, Steve Walton to discuss your brand research objectives contact Sam at sam@healthymarketingteam.com or +44 (0) 20 7814 1937.