“Dooped” – Led to believe certain tales, indoctrinated to trust in an allegory that has been carried over in my family for generations on end…
Change?? When I say change I don’t mean logos, cos let’s face it Coca Cola, Ponds, and Pepsi aren’t going to be rushing to no agency to change their brand logos any time soon. What I mean is packaging; for goodness sake get me excited why don’t you?
I love to observe people in general, look at shopper’s facial expressions, scrutinizing ingredients, nutritional info (those that care to look) and compare prices, before making the purchasing decision. I always try and analyse the psychology behind this, was it colour, was “Generational pressure”, price, or just a matter of grab and go? This is where the “dooping” comes in, I asked a few ladies whilst shopping… (yes, I do ask the questions in the grocery isle) “Why did you buy that particular brand” the answer to my question was quite shocking. Suffice to say it was sample group of 10 ladies unknowingly that partook in my survey.
- I always have and we grew up on this 60%
- It was at a good price 15%
- We are trying it out this month 25%
Question: How did Mom, Gran and Aunty know that this box of detergent, curry powder, tomato Sause was going to be “it” for generations to follow. The average age of a married couple in 1960 was 20yrs whereas today it is at least 26yrs. The working Mom was 37% whereas today we are sitting at 65%. Let’s not go to salaries as the figures will astound you, and it was quite discriminating as to the salaries of today. So, was Mom’s choices not made on price, and convenience stepped in and lent a hand?
The fear of change or changing things is called Metathesiophobia. It is often linked with Tropophobia which is the fear of moving. The origin of the word Metathesiophobia comes from Greek ‘meta’ meaning change and phobos meaning fear. (Fear of .net)
Asked some colleagues the other day about a brand of Tomato Sauce and surprisingly they all answered “36 Tomato’s in a bottle”. Phoof – when we informed them that there was in fact only 8 tomato’s in the bottle, with 36 spoons of sugar? Mmmm perception, based on an advert easily 8yrs prior that has since been disputed in many articles and journals.
Another example is the awesome chocolate bar that made its way onto the shelves with the “Hug Me” or “you’re Awesome” QR code. Put it in my Millennial Lunch box and asked her that night if she took notice of the QR code. With a shrug of the shoulders and a “I don’t have that app on my phone” I wondered how successful that campaign was if my Millennial didn’t notice and not give two hoots about sharing of posting on Social for that matter. I thought it was quite effective and cute.
Brought me to thinking, do we all suffer from “Metathesiophobia” and are we so cynical to get “what Mum did” that we oblivious to making our own concerted choices.
Based on this I did the “unexpected”, “un-influenced” and did the unthinkable…. This month whilst shopping, I tried an unfamiliar brand that had awesome packaging, without prejudice or generational influence and….
I’m loving it!
Ok not without the grumbles from the family but hey… life changes, packaging changes, consumers change so love it and embrace the change only you can make!
