How can neuroscience improve product packaging? Richard chats with Twining's Iain Amos about his work understanding how people perceive the packaging of a product and how it can effect their buying and consumption behaviour. Iain discusses how packaging in perceived on the shelf in a supermarket and how functional elements change the perception of a product. The conversation also digs into combining traditional testing and neuroscience testing to get broad assessments as well as drilling into detailed concepts that are hard to articulate - like how a font changes the perception of a product!
Brandon Wehn (00:09):
Welcome to the show. This is Brandon Wehn, and you're listening to the Understanding Consumer Neuroscience podcast, brought to you by the folks at CloudArmy. In this episode, Richard talks to Iain Amos from Twinings about his work developing product packaging, and the role that neuroscience plays in understanding consumers' perceptions of the product through the package.
Richard Campbell (00:37):
Hi, this is Richard Campbell. Thanks for listening to Understanding Consumer Neuroscience. Today my guest is Iain Amos, who, well, goodness knows. You work for Twinings today. The title is strategic and insight partner, which is sufficiently vague. But clearly you have a long background in working in insights for consumer goods, PepsiCo, Wrigley. These are some pretty cool companies making a lot of stuff.
Iain Amos (01:01):
Yes, that's right. Thank you, Richard. Lovely to speak to everyone today. So I've been in FMCG insight for almost 20 years now, and as you said, across some huge brands. And it's always been a real pleasure to understand why people buy these things and why they love them so much.
Richard Campbell (01:17):
On one hand it's like you may be a marketer, but you're also a consumer. There are packages on my shelf, even tea that do delight me. In the morning when I'm getting my cup, that package stare, I realize I face it in the drawer in that cupboard so that it's right there for me to see. So many goods these days are intangibles or electronics and things, but to talk about the packaging on it, I have a lot of questions, my goodness. I mean, what are you thinking about? There's obviously the legal requirements around a package. It has to describe what's in it and quantities and that kind of stuff. But then everything else, what do you focus on, finding it in the store? That list could be long.
Iain Amos (02:06):
It's a great question, and that's why I think packaging is the thing which has had most of my attention in my career and the bit I really generally get passionate about because it's the one thing that you always see. It takes me back because when I applied for this job for Twinings, the marketing director said, "If you could only research one thing, I'm only going to let you look at packaging or the product or the idea, what would you go for?" So it's just the packaging. That's all I'm interested in because that's the one touch point everyone sees.
Richard Campbell (02:35):
Every time, not just at the point of purchase, but every time they use the product.
Iain Amos (02:41):
Yeah. Every single day, when you buy 200 tea bags, you've got open it 200 times. You've got to interact with that brand. So it's so important that you get it right. And as you said, it's almost every single aspect of it. So it's how it looks, it's how it feels, it's how it sounds. They're all really important, the overall experience which you end up with. So it's every single element we look at.
Richard Campbell (03:06):
Not to get too deep in the weeds of tea, but we both love tea, so why don't we get deep in the weeds of tea?
Iain Amos (03:10):
Okay, let's go.
Richard Campbell (03:12):
When you talk about the tea bag, isn't that packaging too?
Iain Amos (03:15):
It is, yes.
Richard Campbell (03:17):
The rectangular bags versus the square bags versus the round bags or those little pyramid things, somebody thought a lot about those.
Iain Amos (03:25):
We think about it all the time. It's funny, honestly, it's like you've been stalking me to know what we've been talking about. Yeah, exactly. It's what it is, is it square? Is it round? How does it feel? How does it tear? How does it look? And you have to go from not only when you take it out the box all the way to disposing it, that's still a packaging experience. So there's no point when that isn't important, especially in tea. It's something we love so much that you get that right and you become really emotionally attached to this is my tea and this is the one I love.
Richard Campbell (03:57):
Absolutely. And these are products that reach to reflex level. I barely have one eye open and I know where to grab the tea.
Iain Amos (04:07):
Yes. Yeah, people choose their tea, you try and ask them why and they're like, "Oh, I just always have." They'll say my mum did it or my gran did it. So it's a real emotional product.
Richard Campbell (04:17):
And not to plug the brand, but no, I was taught to drink tea on Twinings Earl Grey.
Iain Amos (04:23):
Very good choice, the original. Original and-
Richard Campbell (04:27):
The original. The absolute original product. A tea bag being a specific case, but let's talk about generally speaking in packaging, where is your priority? Because I got to think it's making a sale.
Iain Amos (04:37):
Yeah. I think obviously it is that first thing. I think one thing with packaging is people tend to get really, really detailed and they go probably a bit too far and overthink it. I always like to say, you've really got three jobs. It's do they notice it? So does it stand out when it's sat on a shelf? Is it emotionally attractive? And so is it a joy to seen interact with?
Richard Campbell (04:59):
Yeah, when you find it, you're delighted.
Iain Amos (05:00):
Yeah. And then do they understand what it's about? And if you've done that, you've pretty much, that's your job done.
Richard Campbell (05:06):
You've nailed it, that that's the product I was looking for.
Iain Amos (05:09):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (05:10):
Of course then I'm thinking, the grocery store, and of course you're in the UK, I'm in Canada, so our grocery stores are different, but the grocery store is a huge array of very similar products. So standing out from there is challenging. And I'm always reminded of the story I was told on an earlier show about the orange juice company that changed their packaging and now people couldn't find it on the shelves. They didn't realize that the symbology they were using was how people found it on the shelves. And so sales, they changed the package and the product drops precipitously in sales.
Iain Amos (05:44):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (05:46):
You've also got that legacy of I am used to finding your product because it is this color.
Iain Amos (05:51):
Yeah, absolutely. And having worked at said orange juice place, that was very much a legacy, which you're aware of whenever you were making a change. You're absolutely right, it's how do you stand out but keep those consistent, distinctive assets we always talk about in marketing, that people can still find what they want. But you need to keep updating and making it seem modern enough that they still want and desire it. So the best packaging slowly evolves over time rather than-
Richard Campbell (06:20):
Right, so that you can lead them to someplace.
Iain Amos (06:23):
Yeah. And when you look back as marketeers, a normal person wouldn't, you go, "Wow, that has really changed over 50 years." But everyone else, it's like, "It's always looked like that."
Richard Campbell (06:34):
And you've done it perfectly if you did that, your loyal customers always saw your product was perfect. We'll get to the neuroscience side at this point, but I've got to wonder if there's one path you get to to building that package? But then I also then, after it's in the field, want to assess how the actual customer sees it because I suspect they may see it differently than someone that spent months, possibly years designing it.
Iain Amos (06:57):
That I think is the ultimate challenge for any marketeer and insight person is stepping away because you've spent all day thinking and caring about this.
Richard Campbell (07:06):
You care way more about it than anybody else.
Iain Amos (07:10):
Yes, it's for someone who doesn't care and won't think about it, and they're the most important person, which is quite a challenging paradox.
Richard Campbell (07:16):
That's the customer, right? They're going to give you an iota, and in fact, if you demand more of their focus, they'll be annoyed with you. I think that's one of the great games we play in this business is they not only don't care about our product, they're angry when we make them care. So you want just that sufficient attention that their subconscious allows them to select it and then you can move on.
Iain Amos (07:38):
Yes, that's exactly it.
Richard Campbell (07:42):
If you've done your job perfectly, nobody notices, they just buy your product.
Iain Amos (07:48):
The best compliment you can get is when someone says I just like it and they can't tell you why.
Richard Campbell (07:53):
In the meantime, on the analysis side, we're like, "We want to know why."
Iain Amos (07:56):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (08:00):
It's a hilarious conflict. But that's only one particular environment. What are the other issues you address in packaging besides discoverability on a grocery store lineup?
Iain Amos (08:13):
So I think then you take it in home and it's the usability and the feasibility of it. So does it fit in my cupboard? When I open it, does it open? Is it functional? Then also there's a level of, I guess we'd call it delight in terms of the texture of the pack. We do a lot around the sonics. So particularly on a Twinings box, it clicks.
Richard Campbell (08:33):
When you open and close it?
Iain Amos (08:34):
Yeah, it's a really important thing because it says, oh, this is a bit more quality, it shows freshness.
Richard Campbell (08:40):
Right.
Iain Amos (08:40):
So there's all little things like this that just really enhance the experience as you go and you can make the most beautiful design [inaudible 00:08:48].
Richard Campbell (08:49):
Was that an accidental property or did somebody get the insight, they just say, "You know, it should click."
Iain Amos (08:54):
Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's a great question. I know we now know that it's really important. Where that originally came from, I won't be entirely sure.
Richard Campbell (09:06):
It might've just been a feature of the construction and then it turns out, oh, that's something the customer really responds to.
Iain Amos (09:12):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (09:13):
I think that's part of when we look at understanding our products better, we take it out in the field and then study how people interact with it that that might've been a discovered property that we did this thing with a clicking box-
Iain Amos (09:25):
For sure.
Richard Campbell (09:26):
... and it became important.
Iain Amos (09:28):
I mean, and there's a lot about just watching people rather than asking them, watching them how they're using your product and seeing what issues came up. This certainly happened, I don't know how candy is packaged in Canada, but in the UK, it used to be in big flat bags, which you'd tear open and they'd spill everywhere, and now they're all in stand up pouches. We certainly realized, oh, people are getting really annoyed when they spilled everywhere and their candies, couldn't do what they wanted with them and they couldn't see it in store. So suddenly the usability in-home issue then helps us create a pack, which stood up.
Richard Campbell (10:03):
Because the big flat pack is inexpensive. Spend as little as possible on packaging, which makes sense because in the end, people want the product more than they want the package. But to have a package that I can immediately envision what you're talking about there. There are seams on the sides with the folded bottom so that it will sit upright and then maybe a zip-lockable top, that feel of freshness and so forth. But then more importantly, it's like, I'm not putting these in a bowl. I'm popping them open, sitting beside me on a table, and eating them.
Iain Amos (10:28):
Yeah, exactly. And there's a resealable option because if you want to, you can reseal it, but as we're all guilty of, I know I am, once that chocolate's open, it's gone.
Richard Campbell (10:40):
It's going to disappear. So yeah, really a great point about packaging actually facilitating the consumption of the product and creating more utility as well as find-ability on the store shelf, delight when you get it, those great combinations.
Iain Amos (10:54):
Then I think then where it's moving to even more now is then, okay, after you've used it, how do you dispose of it?
Richard Campbell (10:59):
Right, that sustainability part saying this is a recyclable package or a reusable package.
Iain Amos (11:06):
Yeah, sustainable, however you describe it. And it's how do you make it really easy for people? I think it's such a minefield of I'll split this here, split that there, I'm not quite sure what. So how do you make it as simple as possible so people can dispose of it in a way that's environmentally friendly? It's really important.
Richard Campbell (11:24):
Sure. There's an argument for put everything in a glass jar because the glass jar is very recyclable, but it's expensive and it's heavy and it has its own issues, right?
Iain Amos (11:35):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (11:36):
At the same time, I definitely see here in Canada where we're super big on recycling, it's like a lot of the cardboard is marked as this is recyclable cardboard. Or actually, you do the full virtual signals like this is previously recycled cardboard, which implies, oh, and you can recycle it some more. So there's lots of elements to that, the post-utilization product that matters too.
Iain Amos (11:58):
Yes. And again, a really fascinating space to get insight into because it's so complicated for people and what I want to tell you I do versus what I'm going to do can be very, very different.
Richard Campbell (12:10):
Yes. That good old say, do gap, right? Oh no, I recycle everything. Well, that's not actually recyclable. You sure you did? Yeah, fascinating product. So how much preparation do you do in advance of designing a product? Are you surveying your customers ahead of time, figuring out the things that they care about before you tackle this? Or are you making something and putting it in the field and testing it? What tends to be the approach?
Iain Amos (12:36):
I think it depends if we're doing brand new innovation or if we're redesigning an existing pack. When we're redesigning an existing pack, we will do initial just customer contact work and find out what people think and say about the brand as a whole. And then you go, okay, if you're saying that about the brand, how does it affect their primary touch point? And then we'll start to use a lot of research techniques just to see how do people respond to the design on the shelf, in hand, et cetera.
(13:07):
And I think then if we're doing innovation, it does tend to be actually getting design in hand. So either it's new structures and just seeing how they use them and then getting feedback from them from there. It's a lot of pre-thought into what's the challenge we want to fix first before just rushing off and changing stuff.
Richard Campbell (13:24):
There's always the question of, especially when we're talking about existing products, is this packaging already perfect?
Iain Amos (13:31):
Yeah, if it's not broke, don't fix it. That is obvious.
Richard Campbell (13:33):
Yeah, there's that. And then I've certainly heard those terms on various things. It's like, is this packaging dated? It was contemporary a decade ago, but today it looks a little old-fashioned. Does it need a refresh? Because font preferences seem to change over time. Certainly different colorways change over time as well.
Iain Amos (13:55):
Yeah, I think that's certainly one of the main reasons you start to update packaging is just as you said, over time, it doesn't feel as fresh. It's reminding people why they love this brand and what's good about it, and as you said, tastes change. So what looked modern and contemporary and quality 20 years ago now looks a bit dated and a bit naff to people.
Richard Campbell (14:14):
And not to ride on tea too much, let's face it, I don't know that I want contemporary tea. Tea is sort of a reliable legacy sort of product that you also want to be reminded that this is your same old reliable tea that you count on every morning.
Iain Amos (14:31):
Yeah, it's a real fine balance for us because yes, we are on the one hand, we're always high quality and it's how do you cue that? And yet people love us and we've been around for a long time, but you need to stay relevant. So you can't end up as a really old brand, which okay, I love it but I don't see you.
Richard Campbell (14:50):
You don't want to lose the younger generation of tea, "You drink that tea? What? Are you old?"
Iain Amos (14:55):
Yeah. And I think we can be guilty of going, "It's only for younger people." Even as you get older, you still want modern, contemporary stuff.
Richard Campbell (15:03):
Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Iain Amos (15:04):
You don't want your tea to look like it's from the '80s.
Richard Campbell (15:09):
Well, the click box thing delights me because you debate whether or not you discovered it by accident, but then it's also did you discover it was important by accident because you make a new box, it doesn't click, and people don't like it as much?
Iain Amos (15:22):
We discovered it when we were looking at how we should improve our box or what that you like about it, and you could just see people going, "Oh, that's really nice that, isn't it? Oh, that keeps it fresh." Yeah, it does. There are certainly cheaper ways to do stuff, and that's in a way, what we were looking at is can we do this in a different way? And turns out, actually this is really important.
Richard Campbell (15:47):
Yeah, it's worth spending more on this because it improves the perception of the product.
Iain Amos (15:54):
Yes, which I think, especially in consumer goods, it's always quite hard to find those little things which elevate your brand and make it worth paying more for the full experience of the brand, which elevates you ahead of the competition. So it's finding those little advantages anywhere you can.
Richard Campbell (16:13):
And what kind of testing are you doing to evaluate it? Is this straight focus group stuff like talking to people who are playing with the product?
Iain Amos (16:20):
Well, I think there's a mix of it, and I guess that's where the neuroscience piece comes in. We start off exploring, I guess, with some focus groups or mainly video ethnography just to watch people in their environment doing it. But then when we want to get to the nuance of what's happening is when we start to use the neuroscience approach to work out what's really happening with this packaging, what do they like, what don't they like? It's the stuff that people really struggle to tell you.
Richard Campbell (16:49):
We've talked about this over and over on the show, it's like when we ask them questions, they lie, mostly not intentionally. They're trying to please. But they don't know why, especially when you talk about a near subconscious product like tea where it's just, "I just like it." And then you really do want to peel into what are the elements they like, and this is where more implicit-type tests make sense. I just find thinking about doing implicit testing on tangibles challenging. So I think you probably switched to the digital version and it's images of the packaging at least to do the measuring?
Iain Amos (17:24):
Well, it depends on your time and your budget to be quite honest. We do mainly do the digital testing, especially when it comes to the imagery. So we'll either be using a type of reaction time testing, so we work with the guys at CloudArmy quite a lot. So looking at different images, how do you respond to it in terms of key attributes? Is it quality? Does it look tasty? And do you want to buy it? And really, if you've got those three things nailed, you've kind of nailed tea, especially for us.
Richard Campbell (17:55):
Yeah, absolutely. And I got to think that stuff like trustworthiness and reliability and so forth, which again is somewhat intangible, but those are all the qualities you want from a tea.
Iain Amos (18:04):
Yes. They're very much inherent with our brand. And way more often, we're looking at very small differences because quite often, as you said, if I show you a pack of Twinings Tea, everything you think about Twinings is already there, so you can't really react to the small nuances. You've seen the logo and you go, "I trust that. Yes, it's all high quality." Then people are overthinking what they're looking at and going, "Oh, it's because of this. It's because of that." And you're like, "Oh, wow, you've overthought that. Thank you for your effort in overthinking it." And it's glad you've got to the design strategy we're after.
Richard Campbell (18:38):
But it's going to create a gap in reactions for sure.
Iain Amos (18:42):
Yes, yes. So what we're looking at is just if we're flashing stuff up quickly, what are you taking away? And they go, "Oh, okay." You've suddenly realized if you were talking about different fonts, we have seen at times a different font can completely change your perception of quality. And we then struggle. So it's one of the challenges you have is in using neuroscience is then explaining it to some of your stakeholders because with a real rational survey, it's really easy. I can say, "I've asked 200 people and I asked them this question and they respond this way." And it was like, "Oh, okay, that makes sense." You can ask as many questions as you want, so we all feel really comfortable that we asked all these questions.
Richard Campbell (19:23):
Except for the problem where answers are unreliable, it's a great solution.
Iain Amos (19:28):
And I go to this font when we're redesigning, it is a very small difference, but we ran it through an EEG test, so when they hook the respondents up, so they can see how the brainwaves are reacting and merely just to understand is it emotionally engaging and is it triggering a positive reaction? And this slight difference in font took people to, this is an average quality product.
Richard Campbell (19:53):
Wow, just for a font change?
Iain Amos (19:56):
We're like, "Wow." But that's a really important thing we can then apply everywhere if we're just using different fonts, not thinking too much about it.
Richard Campbell (20:04):
And again, it's hard to explain that upstairs. You got to take them down the test discipline to say-
Iain Amos (20:11):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (20:11):
How do you explain that? What was the approach to that?
Iain Amos (20:19):
I think a lot of it is having the confidence and not being afraid of the science behind it. I think there is something about the word neuroscience, which scares everyone. They suddenly go, "Oh, well I don't understand this, but I understand testing, I understand surveys." So getting the right experts in the room and saying, "Okay, this is the professional and this is why it's important," throwing them the data behind it.
Richard Campbell (20:42):
Because font choices don't survey well, so you need a different testing mechanism to get to this thing. And the fact that you can show a clear differentiation between the fonts and it appears to be important.
Iain Amos (20:54):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (20:55):
But I also wonder how emotional people are about fonts. At the same time, the folks making the decision are like, "Whatever works best." And so if you've got a set of measures that work best-
Iain Amos (21:07):
Well sometimes, but I think a lot of marketing is a very subjective, emotional area, and everyone's a marketeer at heart. And we all love stuff, we can't say why. I think what I've found in a way to start getting neuroscience used more in the business is to show its application. Then you can test the same thing again in a traditional manner and go, "And it's working better there as well." And you go, "Okay, but we wouldn't have got that answer."
(21:36):
Moving away from packaging, we did advertising, we were really struggling with our advert for a while. We couldn't quite work out why it wasn't resonating. And traditional testing was, it's okay, I'm just not that interested. Thousands of metrics were all quite flat. And we worked with Nielsen again on this EEG testing and they noticed this 10-second period where people were just bored. They couldn't tell you, but their brain waves just switched off, disappeared. And we went, "Oh, that's interesting." We cut that out and yeah I love this now. And then we put it back through the traditional survey testing, it absolutely flew. And so that's like, people go, "Okay, now I get it. It's a tangible application and I can understand how it's changed and how it's worked." But no one can ever tell you because people weren't actually bored.
Richard Campbell (22:29):
You just lost their focus. They drifted off in the middle of an advert.
Iain Amos (22:33):
Yeah, but a human being won't know. If they say, watch this for 30 seconds, they can't tell you after the 10 seconds I was just thinking about something else.
Richard Campbell (22:40):
Yeah, I know. I think it'd be very rare to find a person who could realize that they had drifted in the middle of that, but technology could detect it. But I really appreciate the way you described that too, Iain. It's like then the answer was make the change and test again and see how things were different. Just because there was a drift, doesn't mean it was necessarily bad. But make the change and now does it test differently? And you tried a couple of different strategies of testing it after the change.
Iain Amos (23:07):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (23:07):
It's very interesting.
Iain Amos (23:09):
I think one thing we failed to recognize, it's quite brave to try new techniques in research because there's a lot of pressure. We're making big decisions with a big budget, so we're expected to deliver results. And I think people like the comfort of what they know. So I know that, I know what the output looks like, it's got lovely charts, it's got big database benchmarks. I feel if it says it's good, I'm confident. I've almost got a reason why I made my decision.
Richard Campbell (23:38):
I appreciate that you said you both did new neuroscience tests and then new traditional tests and the fact that they correlated an improvement on both, now everybody's going to be more confident. It's like, okay, we don't necessarily know why that change worked, but clearly it worked by every measure.
Iain Amos (23:57):
And I think there's an element of people do understand it's just not as concrete. So we have the experts saying, "The brain, this element has happened. We believe it." But they say we believe whereas a survey would say we know.
Richard Campbell (24:08):
Because they're scientists, that's always what they say.
Iain Amos (24:11):
Yeah, which is difficult because we're like, we prefer the people who say we know. Even though they're probably not right, they sound right.
Richard Campbell (24:19):
Yeah, they sound right and they sound confident, just if they're incorrect, things are worse. But I do appreciate that scientists are careful with their words for a reason, but that uncertainty upsets people when they're betting two comma numbers on it.
Iain Amos (24:34):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (24:35):
It's like, "I'm about to drop a major media spend on this and you say you believe."
Iain Amos (24:45):
Yeah, whereas I prefer the guy who said, "I know this will work." He might be completely wrong, but he said I know, and it'll be a year.
Richard Campbell (24:47):
It'll be a year before you figure it out and he'll be working somewhere else anyway.
Iain Amos (24:50):
Exactly.
Richard Campbell (24:50):
That's not good either. But I think you've got to manage that language with everyone just to understand where that's at. But I do appreciate that this test cycle's important that you're evaluating the product before you do the big spend on it. You see a problem, there's clearly a phase of experimentation to try and find out what the problem is and then retest in the forums to say, "Okay, we have a higher level of confidence to say this is an improved version."
Iain Amos (25:19):
Yeah, you're right. And I think this bit comes to the brilliance of neuroscience is getting to the answers people can't tell you, but it can be difficult during the exploration stage when you've got so many different questions, which is where more traditional things like focus groups feel comfortable because you can just talk about all sorts of stuff and get all your questions out there.
Richard Campbell (25:40):
Where neuroscience tends to be one test at a time and all those tests need to be crafted.
Iain Amos (25:45):
Yeah, and you need to be a bit more selective. It's not that you can't test this stuff, but given budgets and time, you do really have to be a bit more, we want to work out something more specific.
Richard Campbell (25:57):
So prioritizing the questions to go to the neuroscience tests?
Iain Amos (26:01):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (26:01):
It seems like an interesting problem that you're not going to be able to test as many things. So let's be judicious trying to figure out what the most important ones are.
Iain Amos (26:10):
Which is generally, I guess in insight, that's meant to be what you do and it is what you try and do. But stakeholders have lots of questions and you start off by saying, "Oh, what is it you need to know?" And you get a huge old list back and it's like-
Richard Campbell (26:24):
Yeah, now let's group these, see whether they're actually the same question. Let's rank these. Which are the most important ones because we can't necessarily answer them all? But certainly we want to try and focus on the most important ones. And then like you said, a mixture of testing is important, but I appreciate that those neuroscience tests definitely approach certain things that you don't get any other way and then can influence traditional testing results as well after the changes are made, so then it works together. We've mostly been talking about adapting to existing products. I don't know how often you get to greenfield a product these days, Iain. That's got to be a fun time.
Iain Amos (27:00):
We've been working on Twinings, a sparkling tea, so taking Twinings from hot drinks into cold drinks, and then specifically into carbonated soft drinks. So completely new packaging environment for us. So it's not boxes, it's cans.
Richard Campbell (27:14):
Yeah, needs to be.
Iain Amos (27:15):
And all the stuff that goes with that, the tactile feel of the can, the sound which it makes when it opens. And we have to explain to people very quickly what this product is when they're pretty much used to it being in a box, in a bag. It's like-
Richard Campbell (27:31):
Yes, this is a prepared beverage now.
Iain Amos (27:33):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (27:34):
On one hand, they've probably drank prepared canned beverages before, so you don't want to make it too different, but you want to make it clear that it's a Twinings product.
Iain Amos (27:43):
Yes. So we're walking this fine line of, it's Twinings and it's cold, but it's not hot, but I need you to be cuing enough of each one. And so there was a lot of work within that. Again, this is where neuro really, really helped us because when we designed the packaging, a lot of the preference for us internally actually from consumers was to just make it look like a box of tea on a can because then I definitely know it's Twinings. And you're like, "Oh, it intuitively makes sense." But then when we started to put it in the context of the shelf chiller, it starts to look a bit weird, but people could get around that and they didn't really mind. It wasn't until-
Richard Campbell (28:23):
Yeah, as long as the retailer's good with it too. Are you using the retail space the same way? Cooler space is expensive compared to shelf space.
Iain Amos (28:30):
Yes. And then I think it was then when we got to, again, using these neuro approaches to say, what is it that you're really noticing by this? What's being cued by this packaging? And we noticed that when we just cued tea, we were only cuing Twinings, we won't get any soft drinks associations going on. But when we developed the design to be Twinings, but more about the category, so it cues what's in that category, fruit pictures, little fizzy drops on it. So things which are quite intangible, but the can was designed so it looks like it's got fizzy drops on.
Richard Campbell (29:06):
It's got bubbles on it. Okay.
Iain Amos (29:08):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (29:08):
That's good. I see that right away. It's like that's different. That'll pop for someone.
Iain Amos (29:12):
Yeah, and suddenly people can explain why, but it made them think about other soft drinks brands.
Richard Campbell (29:17):
But they see the word Twinings in front of them too.
Iain Amos (29:19):
Yeah, so it's Twinings and it's a soft drink, which really reduced the cognitive load for them to go-
Richard Campbell (29:24):
Solved.
Iain Amos (29:25):
... "Don't have to work too hard now. Twinings soft drink, that makes sense." Whereas the other way is that they didn't mind it, but at a subconscious level they were a bit confused and that microsecond of confusion at a chiller where you're in front of loads of stuff you already know could be the difference between success and failure.
Richard Campbell (29:43):
Yeah, you introduce uncertainty, I'll go to the certain thing.
Iain Amos (29:46):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (29:46):
But you do this right, it's like, "Does that say Twinings? Does Twinings make a soft drink?" And they pick it up, and they at least try it once.
Iain Amos (29:53):
And then we're like, "Oh, we've got a great product. We know when you interact with it, you'll understand the story behind it."
Richard Campbell (30:00):
And you did it with symbology.
Iain Amos (30:01):
Yeah, and stuff which we just couldn't get to by asking.
Richard Campbell (30:05):
It's fantastic.
Iain Amos (30:06):
Because they're like, "It's Twinings. It says Twinings sparkling tea, it's in a can. It must be cold." You're like, "I know you say that, but you've hesitated a little bit too long, which I can't pick up when I'm talking to you."
Richard Campbell (30:17):
Sure. But back to the same thing we described about, then you go back to the regular tests and they say the right things. You've done the neuroscience testing, you realize that symbology would reduce the cognitive load and increase the likelihood of the pickup. And the fact that they pick it up and go, "I know what this is," like describe it in a focus group, you're going to give everybody confidence there.
Iain Amos (30:39):
Yeah, and suddenly all the retailers are like, "I love this packaging, it works really well." And you're like, "Oh, great. And we know why, but we're happy to hear your theories on why it is. But yes, we're quite happy."
Richard Campbell (30:49):
Yeah, you've used neuroscience to get that implicit reaction that then they consciously justify when you ask them.
Iain Amos (30:58):
Yeah, I think it's one of those hard intangible areas. So at PepsiCo we worked on developing a new bottle for the [foreign language 00:31:07] in France, and again, that was an area where it was very subjective and we're dealing with different shapes of bottles and what they connate and one of our key competitors just had this bottle everyone loved. No one can explain why, they just love this bottle. It wasn't until you get to more implicit measures to go, okay, there's certain elements, certain curves and things like the cap, which are a bit heavier, which suddenly connate more quality, which all then transfers back. But when I ask you, you could only say, "I like that one more."
Richard Campbell (31:42):
No, this is fantastic. I mean, the product you've just described, many reliable brands attempt to enter new product areas and fail terribly, and that probably isn't actually the quality of the product at all. It's how did you communicate that this was something new from a well-known brand and that people could understand it was new right away, no surprises, that kind of thing? I think it's because we come with too much baggage from the past that we often aren't willing to explore those things or we think we know.
Iain Amos (32:16):
Yes.
Richard Campbell (32:17):
One of the things I find consistently when I talk to folks who've utilized neuroscience in this space is that they find out that their customer perceives their product differently from them.
Iain Amos (32:26):
Yeah, which is-
Richard Campbell (32:28):
It's important.
Iain Amos (32:28):
It's quite uncomfortable to find that out when you've been thinking something for so long and you're really, this is what's wrong, this is what I want to prove is wrong. I think, as you said of innovation, so much of it fails because traditional testing, it's hard for people not to agree with what we ask them.
Richard Campbell (32:47):
Sure.
Iain Amos (32:48):
So it's like, "Do you like this?" They're like, "Well, yeah, it's from a great brand. It tastes great. It sounds great."
Richard Campbell (32:53):
Then why aren't you buying it?
Iain Amos (32:55):
Yeah, there's not much not to like about it. What is it you love about it, that's the hard thing to really uncover.
Richard Campbell (33:02):
Yeah, it's way more difficult and very hard questions to ask in the focus group model. That's where implicit testing really shines. Iain, I'm delighted with this conversation just because you've really got me thinking about all those different challenges in that space, and that there's definitely a distinctive role for neuroscience in it as well. All this different testing has value, but there's certain aspects where you need to go to these techniques if you really want to understand what the customer's seeing.
Iain Amos (33:27):
Yeah. I think particularly one of the challenges you'll find, I think I've always found is our desire. We want to communicate as much as we possibly can because we care so much. And this box of tea has got so much in it, so many benefits, it's natural, it's quality. We do lots of added benefit tea, like sleep teas. I'm sure they're big in Canada as well. So we want to tell you about all the hard work we've put into this and read it and love it as much as we do, but then it massively overloads the consumer. Again, they can't tell you that.
(34:06):
And so they'll look at a pack and go, "It's great because you've told me this. You've told me that, told me this." But then when you work with, again, so we work with CloudArmy on this to understand where people are looking and how much attention they've got, can they physically take in that amount? And so they go, "Oh, wow, we have made this too complicated." It tested great when we asked 15 attributes, is it natural? Is it recyclable? Is it high quality? Is it good for you? They all got really high because I could look at the pack and tick it.
Richard Campbell (34:37):
But that's not what you're doing in the grocery store.
Iain Amos (34:39):
Yeah, the brain just went, "Whoa, I'm not looking at that anymore."
Richard Campbell (34:43):
And now that too much information means I don't make a decision. I walk away.
Iain Amos (34:49):
And I think I notice because I'm a bit strange, when I shop for groceries, I really look at packaging.
Richard Campbell (34:56):
You are in the business.
Iain Amos (34:59):
It's annoying for your wife when she's like, "Can we ..." "No, no, just a minute. Let's just look and browse the shelf for a minute."
Richard Campbell (35:04):
Just look at this. Look how great this is.
Iain Amos (35:07):
Your great brands are really confident and they don't have too much upfront. They know this is the key things. Let things breathe. It takes a lot of confidence.
Richard Campbell (35:19):
[inaudible 00:35:17] that confident. Of course, if you talk to an average person about, look how confident this packaging is, they just look at you like you're an alien too.
Iain Amos (35:24):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (35:25):
It occurs to me when we were talking about the problem with the focus groups is we already admit that we are far more interested in this problem space than the customer is, but when we put them into a focus group, we deliberately force them to be as interested as we are. So we're turning them into us, which is not actually solving the problem. Where neuroscience testing, implicit testing, those types of tests, allow us to leave them as consumers and still evaluate.
Iain Amos (35:52):
Yeah, and it is just that challenge of better quality insight, but less of it versus lower quality and loads more of it. And I think that's the biggest challenge for using neuroscience is getting your business and stakeholders comfortable with you might not know everything, but what you know is the good stuff.
Richard Campbell (36:14):
And very powerful
Iain Amos (36:15):
Versus you're going to know everything, but I wouldn't use it.
Richard Campbell (36:19):
You know everything, it just happens to be wrong.
Iain Amos (36:22):
Yeah.
Richard Campbell (36:25):
I think that's a great place to leave it. Iain, thank you so much for talking to me on this.
Iain Amos (36:28):
Thank you, Richard. It's been a pleasure.
Richard Campbell (36:29):
And we'll talk to you next time on Understanding Consumer Neuroscience.