Compromising Experience

I noticed an off-brand of tomato sauce at the supermarket - it caught my eye because it was sold in a slightly larger can than the other brands between which it was shelved, and it struck me as an interesting and effective packaging gimmick - but on closer inspection, it led my thoughts in a different direction: to the way in which customer experience is compromised for other goals.

Specifically, the "large" off-brand can contained 16 ounces of product - an even pint - whereas the leading brands were sold in odd quantities, 15 ounces or 14.5 ounces.   Quite some time ago, most products were packaged in more or less even quantities (a 16-ounce pint, an 8-ounce cup, or a 4-ounce half-cup) and that today, most brands seem to offer slightly less (14 ounces, 7.5 ounces, 11 ounces) that don't even come out to an even quantity in metric units.

This is a common observation, and the knee-jerk reaction among people who notice is along the lines of "they are cheating me."  There's some argument that firms were faced with increasing ingredient costs and made a compromise: to keep the unit cost to the customer the same, they would reduce quantity per unit, so it's for the economic benefit of the customer that package sizes were reduced so the package price could stay the same.  I don't think this dismisses the complaint, especially since the producers who short their content during a crisis never seem to size their products back up to the previous standard when ingredient costs normalize.  Also, when you consider price-per-ounce, the customer is still paying more, and the producer is hoping they don't notice.

But more to the point, companies that make such decisions have clearly failed to consider the impact to customer experience.   That is to say that the producer didn't consider the consequences of downsizing their product after the financial exchange - specifically to the experience of the consumer who will be using the product after it has been purchased.

Obviously, a shopper buys tomato sauce because it is an ingredient in a recipe (I'm not aware people heat the stuff up and eat it like soup) - and the recipe calls for a pint of tomato sauce.   So in a situation where 16 ounces is needed and the product is sold in 14-ounce increments, the ultimate outcome is negative:

• Compromise: the customer can buy one can and accept that the meal they make will taste slightly off due to the imbalance.   The conclusion: "Brand X makes my recipes taste worse"
• Complexity: the customer can buy one can and adjust the remaining ingredients proportionally, doing the calculations to consider that if they use 14 ounces of tomato sauce rather than a pint, they would have to add 1.75 tablespoons of basil instead of two.  The conclusion: "Brand X makes cooking more complicated."
• Dissatisfaction: Another consequence of the previous solution, downsizing the recipe to accommodate a smaller package, also means having less benefit (food) than is needed.  It's just a little less, bit it leads to the conclusion: "Brand X does not fully satisfy my needs."
• Guilt: the customer can buy two cans, use 16 ounces, and throw the other twelve ounces away because it is not needed.   The conclusion "Brand X is wasteful."
• Obligation: the customer who buys two cans and has leftover, and can't bear the guilt of throwing away perfectly good food, could find another use for the leftover 12 ounces.  The conclusion: "Brand X burdens me with additional tasks"
• Disgust: the customer who has leftover and fails to make use of it quickly will eventually notice a smell of rotten tomato in his refrigerator, emanating from a container of leftover sauce that has turned foul.  The conclusion: "Brand X is disgusting"

I don't think that any of these conclusions are attributes a firm would like to be associated to its brand - nor do I think that if the full range of outcomes were considered, producers would have been so hasty to make this compromise.   All that was considered is that reducing package volume would enable the firm to maintain profit, and maybe get people to buy an extra unit once in a while.   And if customer experience were really considered, it would be clear that all of these problems are not worth saving a nickel or a dime on the purchase price.

It's worth noting that all of this is speculation - that customers have largely accepted the compromises above, though likely not because they had a choice: all a customer can do is decide whether to accept what is offered or undertake the effort to find other alternatives, and when their preferred brands and close competitors all made the same operational decision, the customer has to accept as fact that tomato sauce now comes in 15-ounce cans (for all brands) and to ratify the decision with their dollars.

It would be interesting to see if the emergence of a competitor (the off-brand that caught my eye) will lead the remaining brands to upsize their packages, but I don't expect that to be so.   People have strong loyalty to the brands they buy habitually and accept disappointment as a matter of course, and its likely that recipes that call for "a can" of product are used by the people whose palates are not that discerning to begin with.   It's a bit depressing, and very counterproductive to the general welfare ... but such is the way of things.

I recognize that I am lapsing in a cynical state of mind and meditating on this topic urther will likely not be productive - but to end with a quick summary of the points: decisions made for reasons of economy and efficiency can easily achieve their primary goals, but often at the cost of customer experience - and that it's worthwhile, and perhaps even critical in the long run, to pause for a moment to consider the full breadth of the consequences.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

While I tend to react negatively to those who claim to be innovative when they are simply copying something that someone else has done, I have to concede that imitation is sometimes the right approach. Mindlessly copying a competitor or rigid adherence to industry standards as a default is clearly the path of a firm that is not merely unsuccessful, but which doesn't really care about achieving success - but there are instances in which imitation, carefully considered, is found to be the best tactic.

Take, for example, the standards and practices that are evident when you consider several products in the same category: products of the same type generally have a number of similarities, which enables customers to recognize without having to be taught what a given brand is, and is meant to do. Imitating others and adhering to a common practices helps the shopper to recognize what's in the package, what the Web site does, what kind of operation is behind the door. And while innovation is possible, it's still necessary to copy certain features that are common to the category.

The problem with the image above should be self-evident, but at the risk of being bombastic, I'll elaborate: soda bottles have a specific size and shape, and the customer has come to learn that and expect that the contents of a bottle is soda pop. Actually, I think that has been broadened, as juices and water are sold in bottles of similar size and shape - so it would be more accurate to suggest that the size and shape indicate that the bottle is something potable. It's certainly not a cleaning product.

And so, selling bleach in a bottle shaped like a beverage container is an unwise and potentially dangerous. It's unwise in that the consumer who wants bleach will not recognize your brand of bleach as such, and will not buy it. It's potentially dangerous in that a consumer who wants soda will not recognize your brand as "not soda" and drink it, at least a sip. And while the "reasonable man" standard should shield you from liability, the law has switched to the "dumbest ape on the planet" standard when it comes to consumer protectionism. Sometimes, that's not a bad thing.

That's not to say that innovation isn't possible. When it comes to soda, there's one brand whose packaging stands out. I likely do not need to name it, just the shape of the bottle evokes the name of the brand. Granted, it is roughly the same size, and kind of the same shape as every other brand of soda - but it's different enough that no-one who sees the bottle thinks of a different brand. And that is brilliant.

The question then becomes, for any brand, how closely one must adhere to a "product standard" and how much one can deviate from the same standard in order for customers to recognize your brand as unique.

At the extreme of innovation is the firm that sells its product in a unique package, unlike any other product, and intends to "teach" the customer the shape of the bottle is an element of their brand. Once the brand has succeeded, you will have unique identity and strong consumer loyalty. But getting there will be an uphill battle.

At the opposite extreme is the firm that sells its product in a package that conforms to the "industry standard" for all other products of the same category. The advantage is that you are leveraging the visual cues that the customer has already learned from other brands - they know that there is soda in the bottle, even if they do not recognize the brand on the label. But at the same time, you're running the risk of never developing an identity, never offering a peg on which the customer may hang their loyalty.

If it's an informed risk - the brand manager knows and accepts the consequences of the decision to imitate, it's arguably an intelligent choice. But more often than not, I suspect that such decisions are not the subject of logic - the imitator puts no thought at all into what he is doing, just copies others, mindless of the reason.

And to my way of thinking, failure to make a decision, to even think about making a decision, is worse than making a decision that turns out to have poor results. If you make a bad choice, you can recognize it and change it later. If you make no choice, and assume that copying what made others successful will also make you succeed, you'll forever be chasing the wrong things, steadfast in the confidence that the decision to imitate and conform is not the cause of the problem ... and it may not cause a problem, per se, but merely prevent you from succeeding.

But in fairness, it is not necessarily a decision made by a brand manager at all - the operations manager insists that his equipment will only work with standard bottles, the cost accountant demands the cheapest alternative and insists it will save a penny per unit, and the brand manager does not fight (or loses the fight) for ownership of packaging decisions. You could argue that he should have fought harder, but those of us with a few battle-scars know all to well that there are some fights you just can't win, given the culture of an organization.

Vine-Ripened Cherry Tomatoes

Tom Beatty posted this snapshot of a carton of "vine-ripened" cherry tomatoes to Facebook. In case you're viewing a text-only feed or have red-green colorblindness: the tomatoes are not at all ripe, and some of them are very green. Aside of the irony of the image, it strikes me as an excellent example of bad product labeling.

Consumers have become thoroughly jaded to product packaging. Thus far, neither Tom nor anyone who's commented on the photo has expressed any outrage at the obvious attempt to misinform the customer. It's laughable, but does not offend - and the lack of offense stems from a lack of faith in marketing claims - because to be offended and the "deception" would require that one had an expectation of honesty.

There was a time when something like this would have rankled, and when consumer-protection groups would have sought out the producer to set things right. But in the present age, the consumer watchdogs are asleep - moreover, if a person is misled by advertising, the reaction tends to be "what a naive person" rather than "what an unethical company."

At the risk of coming off as cynical, I tend to wonder if consumer protection groups ever gave much thought to protecting the consumer, or if they were merely pawns of the manufacturers who funded them. In this instance, it would seem that Andrew & Williamson (the importer who packaged these particular tomatoes) could be subject to a lawsuit from Desert Glory, the company that spent quite a lot of advertising money to run television commercials for its "Nature Sweet" tomatoes and establish a public perception that vine-ripening produces a tastier tomato.

My guess is that Desert Glory doesn't consider Andrew & Williamson a serious enough threat to their brand to invest in pursuing the matter, or hasn't contributed quite enough support to the consumer protection racket to get them to take up a public relations campaign, or fear that any publicity might do more damage to the public perception of "vine ripened" and undermine the perception they have paid to create.

But I digress ... the point I had intended to make was that advertising claims about products by those with a commercial interest in selling them have lost credibility with consumers, and my sense is that this image and the reaction that precipitated (or the lack of reaction) is an excellent demonstration of that.

On closer inspection, the same label contains a few phrases that have also lost their meaning: the banner across the top reads "limited edition", and just below it, there's the word "Premium" - both of which have been used so frequently in advertising that they have lost all meaning to consumers.

In all, there's virtually no value in any of the words on this label. From top to bottom, it indicates:

• Limited Edition - A completely meaningless phrase
• Premium - Also completely meaningless
• Vine-Ripened - Which is plainly false
• Cherry Tomatoes - Which is self-evident, as the package is clear
• Do Not Refrigerate - Good advice for the consumer's storage to preserve quality (though I wonder if there is much "quality" to preserve)
• Andrew & Williamson, San Diego, CA - A company, but their role is unclear: did they grow them, package them, wholesale them, or merely provide the branding?
• Net weight 12 ounces - Perhaps the only words on the entire label that can be trusted, or are of any use to anyone
• Product of Mexico - Not on the label, but a sticker which would seem to indicate that the address of the company above may be in the U.S., but the product was actually grown in another country.

There is nothing that a consumer would take into account when purchasing the item, which begs the question: why bother to label this item at all? Arguably, putting a certain quantity into a package is a convenience to the consumer in that it enables them to grab-and-go rather than to have to bag and weigh the produce if it were stored in a bulk bin - and while the price isn't shown in this image, my experience with other produce is that the convenience comes at a considerable mark-up.


I've rambled on a while, and there's probably quite a bit more that doesn't immediately come to mind - all related to a general theme of the value of marketing efforts to communicate the qualities of a product to the customer by means of product labeling, and all pointing to the general conclusion that, for some products, there's simply no point to doing so.