Beverage Brands Yet To Reach Today’s Consumer

Fierce competition and the continuing fragmentation of the beverage market is forcing brands to fight for their place on store shelves and compete for consumers’ attention via social media.

In an attempt to retain their competitive edge over rivals, they are taking time to come up with smart awareness campaigns to guide consumers’ buying decisions, according to an eMarketer report I read recently.

However, the study, entitled “CPG Focus – Beverages: Emerging Mobile and Social Strategies,” suggests that despite beverage marketers’ great efforts to create engaging marketing campaigns, what can keep consumers’ attention the longest is discounts or other purchase incentives.

In food and beverage brand apps, the most used content is recipes and product information, but while these types of apps have the potential to fill the gap from intent to purchase, it is still unclear whether they have the capacity to prompt consumers to make a purchase.

eMarketer also cited recent data pointing to solid growth in food and beverage app downloads by grocery shoppers. It noted that this increase comes even when not all beverage brand apps are providing what consumers want.

These apps rather offer experiences, and are less about practical advice or value, despite evidence that deals and discounts are the main things that consumers look to get from brands in return for their time and data usage. This discrepancy was highlighted in a recent informal search through the iPhone App store, which suggested there was a disconnect between customers’ crave for value and information, and brands’ offers of entertaining experiences.