How to Connect with Adventurers
23 May 2019 | Innova Market Insights
Consumers are moving out of their comfort zones to explore bolder flavors and multisensory food experiences. Brands are responding by creating more engaging experiences, drawing on aspects like sensory delivery, storytelling and tastes from other cultures.
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Thanks for joining us for today's Enova Market Insights webinar called Discovery the Adventurous Consumer.
My name is Tom Vierheil.
I'm the VP of Strategic Insights North America for Enova, and I'll be taking you through today's webinar and speaking on behalf of my colleague Lou Ann Williams.
Before we get started, just some brief information about Enova Market Insights in case you're not familiar with the company.
Enova is based in the Netherlands, and it is a company that's been engaged in offering insights and knowledge on various consumer markets for the last quarter century or more.
One of the things we're known for is our Enova database of new products, and each year we're adding over 5 million new products to this database from over 90 countries around the world.
So that's a tremendous resource, and you'll see some highlights from that database in today's webinar.
One thing I should note here is that Enova is more about more than just new product innovation.
We also offer market sizing, as as information on where the consumer is headed, looking at some of the various responses to consumer surveys that we conduct here at Enova Market Insights.
So are you ready for an adventure?
Today's webinar is going to talk in great depth about the adventurous consumer, and really, this is all about how consumers are kind of getting out of their comfort zones and embracing adventure in new and different ways.
There's really 4 key elements that are behind this trend, and they include experiences.
This is how consumers are getting outside and going to restaurants, in some cases and experiencing new and different flavors.
Flavor is another element here, the discovery.
Of new flavors, textures, and storytelling are another couple of key elements that really contribute to this trend toward the adventurous consumer, and we'll do much more of a deeper dive here in the next few slides on each one of these key elements.
So what's happening with today's consumer is that today's consumer is more inclined than ever to get out of their comfort zone to experience bolder flavors.
Consumers tend to be novelty seeking if you're looking at the survey numbers here on the left panel of the slide.
Majority of consumers in markets like the United States, China, and the UK say they love to discover new flavors.
And of course, flavor innovation is probably the key element of innovation when it comes to new product marketing in consumer packaged goods, and that it fuels a lot of the product activity that Innova Market Insights picks up each year.
One way that companies are trying to engage consumers these days is the use of mystery flavors to spark curiosity and excitement.
The Pringles potato chip product that's pictured here does not reveal the flavoring.
It relies on the consumer to kind of discover the flavor themselves, and if they're successful and can identify.
The real flavor of the product that can enter a contest and actually win $10,000.
So flavor discovery and curiosity can actually pay off literally in the case of this product.
Consumers are increasingly inclined to seek out the unknown, and that includes discovering flavors from other cultures, a lot of broad support for that.
And some of the top areas where we're seeing this play out include flavors that come from the Middle East or Northern Africa, as in the case of Harissa, or local cuisine flavors like some of the local flavors you might see in country markets like China.
In the case of Harissa, we're beginning to see some of the larger packaged food companies incorporate this flavor into their products.
The Lean Cuisine line recently added a Harissa flavored meatball in the last year or so.
So this is an indication that companies are interested in this sort of approach.
Food service companies are also looking to kind of expand their Their flavor profile globally, McDonald's recently added a slew of new global menu items, including a stroopwaffle McFlurry, that consumers can purchase at various stores.
Texture is another key way that companies can make their products more indulgent.
This has become one of the more emerging types of innovation platforms and new food and beverage products.
Some of the unique ways that companies can do this include, adding a bubbly texture, as in the case of the Cadbury product pictured here, or even going.
In a different direction and adding a chewy texture, which is the type of thing that many snack bar makers are doing in various world markets, as as confectionery products like the Skittles chewies which in the case of this product, it's a Skittle candy without the shell, so it brings an entirely new experience to enjoying this particular confectionery brand.
It's also, consumers are also on a quest for lightness, a lot of worries out there about obesity, and what can we do to avoid falling in the trap of obesity, and that has given rise to a lot of flavor innovation in different formats like the Thins format that we see here.
A lot of salty snack marketers and confectionery makers are leaning on this format as a way to deliver permissible indulgence.
Texture is another key way that companies can innovate.
That photo looks like the leading tower of Pisa.
It's actually a stack of pancakes in Japan, and yes, they are fluffy and airy, and airy has become one of the bigger trends when it comes to flavor innovation these days, as you can see from the growth of products featuring airy product claims.
Processing is also another way that companies can innovate in this space, and we've seen kind of a little boomlet in snacks that are air popped, these lotus flower seed snacks, a natural product that is air popped and has a nice fluffy texture, and is a better for you alternative to traditional extruded snacks.
It's all about the story too.
When you're engaging with consumers that have a sense of adventure and and are novelty seeking, we're seeing a lot more interest in the story behind the food and beverage brands that people buy, and there's a hunger for learning more of these key details and It's also a great way for our companies to stand out in a very crowded marketplace.
The brand you see here, the chocolate bar brand, is quite known in the Netherlands.
It's Tony's Chocoloni, And what Tony's does that's different than the average chocolate brand is they pride themselves on marketing a chocolate bar that is made from 100% slave-free cocoa.
Consumers, a lot of consumers may not realize it, but the cocoa trade in Africa involves a lot of child labor.
Over 2 million West African children are engaged in harvesting cocoa, and what Tony Chocoloni is trying to convey is that they are not participating in this trade, and they care about their consumers.
So this is a kind of a change the world type of branding for this particular product.
Transparency is also something that's part of the adventurous consumer trend, and, again, consumers want to know where their ingredients come from, broad interest in, in this globally, as you can see, especially in markets like India and Spain.
Some of the newer tools out there do allow consumers to really engage with brands in a much deeper way and find out more of these key details if you're looking at the downstream product that's pictured here, this beer product.
It's the first beer to use blockchain technology that reveals everything you want to know about this beer, including its ingredients, the brewing methods, and so on.
And all you have to do here is use the QR code that is printed on the front of the label here to engage with this product.
Another brand that's doing this is the Salty Girl Seafood brand in the US.
Every box of this frozen seafood brand has a code that you can enter at the company's website to trace where your fish was harvested from.
It is the experience that counts that counts, and what we're seeing in the marketplace here, especially among younger consumers, is a, is a much greater desire to live versus have.
It's not about trying to buy stuff.
It's more about the experience.
According to a recent survey conducted by Enova Market Insights, 58% of millennial consumers say they'd rather spend their money.
On an experience or an event versus buying something desirable of a similar value, and that's playing out in different ways as companies try to incorporate some of these elements in their offerings.
The middle slide, for instance, is a photo of Starbucks' reserve and roastery tasting room in Seattle, and what you're seeing there is something called the siphon brewing method, so consumers can learn more about how the product is made, and it turns the consumption experience into a true experience.
Other companies are trying to personalize the experience.
If you go to the Kellogg's store in New York City, you can create your own cereal.
And turn it into much more of an indulgent experience.
A couple other brands are doing similar things.
Unilever has something called Magnum ice cream stores located at various locations around the globe, and in Canada, Loblaw stores recently added a Nutella cafe concept there where consumers can experience everything Nutella and can kind of customize the experience.
Now the way the adventurous consumer is enjoying some of their adventure is dining out and, and taking some of these key elements from dining out and incorporating them for foods that can be made at home.
Going out for dinner is an experience that does inspire home cooking.
No huge surprise there.
It's often the first place that consumers experience types of ethnic cuisine that they've never had a chance to try before.
A growing number of food companies globally are attempting to deliver this experience to consumers at home via various packaged products, including the soft taco kit you see here that brings the Mexican street food experience home for consumers in the UK.
And finally, the last slide in today's webinar kind of brings everything together and brings these four elements that we identified very early and kind of mixes and matches them in a way to create kind of a greater level of involvement for the modern adventurous consumer.
This is all about creating an experience that can be shared with others and Both of the products that are pictured here kind of do it in a dare you kind of way.
I'm not quite sure what it's like experiencing a gummy candy that tastes like hairy worm, vomit, or diarrhea, but you do have a chance to experience that with a product that's pictured on the left there, as as the product on the right there, trying to elevate the experience through the use of hot and spicy ingredients, kind of a how much heat can you take kind of innovation.
So, I invite everyone to check out our booth at this year's IFT show in New Orleans.
Enova Market Insights is located at booth number 5051, where we are running a series of presentations each day, including our best, our -known top 10 trends for 2019 presentation.
As as many other trending topics.
So, feel free to check us out at this year's IFT show, and we can show you a lot more of, some of the emerging kind of consumer trends that we're seeing here at Enova.
Thanks again for attending and best of luck to everyone.
