Better-for-you brands have seen enormous growth. plant-based, low-calorie and low & no alcohol products now occupy whole aisles in supermarkets across the country.
But with this explosion of better-for-you-brands has come an enormous variation in quality. For every great-tasting healthy brand, there are many more alternatives that don’t match up to the taste expectations of consumers, which in turn taint the whole category.
As Chloe Bate, head of marketing at Dry Drinker, points out: “There is a willingness to try low & no alcohol alternatives, but with so much choice, if consumers’ first taste experience is bad, they can end up being put off the entire category.”
The taste barrier
One of the biggest barriers facing healthier products is negative taste associations. A large proportion of consumers believe a healthy product will compromise on flavour and satisfaction.
That has obvious implications on purchase intentions, considering 88% of consumers state taste as the primary reason for buying a product, according to a 2020 survey from the International Food Information Council Foundation.
Vita Coco is one example of a brand that has overcome that barrier. By pushing taste as its key message in marketing comms, “it has opened the category up to many more consumers who had previously disregarded coconut water based on the taste,” says Tim Rees, MD of Vita Coco.
At Flavor, we have seen a variety of brands looking to address taste concerns where the product’s positive nutrition message could negatively bias consumer perceptions.
So the mission is to stand out from the crowd and make sure the taste message is not lost.
Positioning around taste
Like Vita Coco, a number of the brands we spoke to put the taste message front and centre, while highlighting health messages as a secondary benefit. General Mills looked to use traditional language and visuals from more indulgent products.
“When shopping for functional or better-for-you snacks that still taste great, many people look for flavour cues from traditionally more indulgent products,” said a spokesman. “At General Mills we took inspiration from one of the more treat-led brands in our portfolio – Häagen-Dazs – for Fibre One 90 Calorie Strawberry Cheesecake bars, which launched earlier this year. It’s products like this in our range that perfectly position Fibre One 90 Calorie as the ultimate in ‘permissible indulgence’.”
Rees of Vita Coco believes this can be a powerful sell. “We were very explicit in the copy line of one of our latest campaigns, claiming that it is ‘Impossible to hate’. The taste message definitely lands well and allows us to continue this focus with some of our billboard executions that include real products for the public to sample,” he says. “By saying ‘we could tell you how good it is – but just try it for yourselves’, we show the confidence we have in the taste of the product first and foremost.”
Ruth Fittock, MD at Simply Roasted, also backs this approach. “Taste is the number one category driver – lead with it. Don’t lead with guilt-free. Don’t use terms like low-calorie, etc. That’s not what consumers look for.”
Product trial
If your product does taste great, the best way of tackling these perceptions is to get consumers to taste it.
Fittock says: “Everything we do is about driving trial, whether that is passive sampling (like partnering with meal kits and Craft Gin Club), active sampling by leveraging in-store relationships, or bringing people to the brand with introductory offers/referrals.”
Surveys conducted from a variety of campaigns run by Flavor show consumers who have received a sample are up to 80% more likely to go on to buy the product. So it is little surprise General Mills also puts a lot of weight into getting products into consumers’ hands with an integrated sampling approach – engaging consumers across multiple touchpoints.
Trusted reviews
The third key point is getting and promoting endorsements that consumers trust, which highlight how tasty your product is.
Fittock at Simply Roasted has a strong belief in the power of reviews. A strong Trustpilot score is one of the driving forces of its growth, she says, as are the awards wins used in its comms.
Vita Coco also focused a lot of its efforts around engaging TikTok users to leave honest reviews. Influencers were used to kick off the challenge, and consumer involvement grew to the point where they were creating and sharing tasty recipes with the product.
Bate at Dry Drinker has a similar belief in reviews. “Building consumer trust around taste in an impartial way is really important. Playing consumer reviews back to new customers through communications helps build greater confidence.”
So while the taste barrier is real for better-for-you brands, there are proactive ways to overcome it for products that really do deliver.
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