Advertisers of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) need to be able to reach consumers everywhere now that coronavirus has made shoppers very comfortable doing their grocery shopping online.
Prior to the pandemic last year, advertisers of FMCG goods allocated only a small percentage of their budget to e-commerce platforms, explained Richard Nicoll, chief strategy & capability officer at Liquid, an e-commerce agency.
But with consumers now using both channels interchangeably based convenience, cost and range of products, and value – regardless of the channel – advertisers need to catch up.
“FMCG retail has become channel-agnostic which means advertisers have to be everywhere,” said Nicoll.
“You can’t do a brilliant job in Carrefour but a terrible job on Amazon and noon, or vice versa if you want to be a successfully holistic brand. It’s been a very new thing especially for some marketers who have been used to doing things in certain ways,” he continued.
Despite the challenge of its novelty, Nicoll said e-merchandising opens up opportunities which were not necessarily available when it comes to promotions in grocery stores.
“There’s more complexity in terms of e-commerce [versus in store advertising] but also more opportunity. For instance, if you’re an established brand in a store, and you’ve had a great distribution partner, you are likely to have the fair share of the shelf and of people’s eyes versus a new small brand,” said Nicoll.
“In e-commerce, if you are a brand new brand which was smart enough to buy the right keywords in Amazon advertising, you could quite easily become the first thing that a shopper sees which is sort of not true in the grocery store experience,” he explained.
For successful FMCG e-marketing, a brand has to be listed in the top 10 search results.
Richard Nicoll, chief strategy & capability officer at Liquid
“In a store, you can walk into an aisle and see everything around so the visual amenities are very important. But when it comes to online, if you can’t see it in the search options, then you’re not going to buy it,” said Nicoll.
“When it comes to online, and e-commerce, you first have to make sure that it shows up and is listed properly and here e-merchandising is really important to make that happen,” he added.
Grocery aggregators like InstaShop sell FMCG brands media packages to increase their visibility but organic elements like reviews and ratings help the algorithms display the brand higher, explained Nicoll.
“Visibility is also important in making sure that, when you have the opportunity of showing up in a display banner, you’re saying the right thing,” said Nicoll.
“Whereas an ad outside of retail might be creating a fun headline or an ad line, when it comes to retail a short sharp claim that’s a promise allows consumers to buy with confidence,” he explained.
Following the claim, making sure consumers have a call to action, through a “shop now” button is also important, said Nicoll.
Liquid is expanding its operations with an office in Saudi Arabia and Egypt out of the belief that “as the pandemic eases, there’s going to be new shopping behaviours that the brands need to understand and take the opportunities on.”
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