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Bonjour. I hope you're all well. Today we're gonna see why your product is failing on the market, especially if you're going to retailers. It's not only hard to get to a retailer and be on shelf, the most difficult thing is actually to stay on their shelf.
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As soon as your product starts decreasing in sale, start failing, you're going to be removed just like that. So what happened? One, so you may go directly to I need a rebranding.
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My packaging is not shiny enough. I need to, I need to be seen. Or maybe my price is wrong. Actually, most of the time the flavours is the problem.
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Studies have shown that flavours is the number one reason people buy a food or drink product again. so they may buy it once. But what is the point is say don't buy it again and again.
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You don't want to be just at the top of the funnel where you have a lot of visibilities. A lot of people buy your food or drink product, but there's only one time and then they go away. You want them to keep on buying again and again, not only for them, for their close ones, etc.
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there are five main reasons why food and drink product fail on the market. The first one is flavours are too weak. There's nothing more disappointing than having a bold packaging and the bold flavours on pack and then tasting the product and be so disappointing.
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it doesn't taste of anything. The second reason is flavours are unbalanced, especially if you have multiple flavours. If one flavour overpower the other, that is a no go.
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Everything has to be harmonious and balanced. Three flavours are unrecognizable and again it may be linked to the fact that it's too weak.
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Again, most people play the marketing tool of having very specific type of flavors, like for example a chocolate brownie, a barbecue Korean steak and all of these things.
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And the problem is, if all of these marketing names on pack don't reflect what actually the product tastes like, people are going to be disappointed. And that happens to me so many times, especially in the crisps area where they are very creative.
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Especially when Christmas is coming and you have all of these pigs and blankets and things and you taste them and you just feel like, yeah, it tastes a bit meaty. But I close my eyes and I would never be able to say, yes, it tastes like a Christmas dinner with a little bit of gravy.
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And the turkey, it just tastes general meat, and it's not good enough. One of my customers actually wanted to do that on their packaging. We worked on one of their vegan product, and it was a vanilla flavour we were working on.
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And he was telling me he has this marketing hat on, and he was telling me, "should I say it's a cupcake? Vanilla. It's a vanilla ice cream. It's a vanilla dream is this". And all of this fancy name and myself and all of their team keep on telling them, you can't do that.
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This is going to disappoint the customer. If it's just a generic but very good creamy vanilla, this is the only thing you're gonna say, anything that is not true, people are going to be disappointed and stop buying again. Even on sport nutrition, how many times that happen?
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Oh, yes. It's supposed to be a cinnamon bun. Yeah, it just tastes like, more vanilla. You don't have the, yeasty note. You don't have the baked note. You can't do that.
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People are going to be disappointed and stop buying your product again. Okay, enough of this. You feel this is my most annoying one. Point number four is flavours are flat or they are lacking complexity. You have to think as flavours, the same as perfume, as layers.
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So you have the top note, the one that are very volatile and very fresh most of the time. Then you have the more middle note, the more complex notes. And then you have the base note, where you have more lingering, aroma compound.
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So you will have something that is very woody, a, little bit heavier. So you want. You have to think of a flavour as a perfume where you need all of these notes to be able for people to think, oh, yes, I'm gonna have this product because the flavour is so good.
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When you think about food and drink product, when you look on shelf, there are hundreds of the same flavours. Whatever is sweet or savoury is always the same one. It's always chicken, it's always barbecue, it's always vanilla, it's always strawberries, always chocolate.
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So you have to differentiate yourself with something that is complex. People feel like, whoa, oh, that's very interesting. That's just not like a cheap strawberry flavour that has a lot of layer. It's complex, it's good.
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I want more. And point number five, flavours on thought through enough, difficult to say, but I got there. So this is in term again of flavour profile of target consumers and flavour perception.
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an example I gave you was another client and we worked on their strawberry flavour for one of their products.
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And there were two flavor profile for strawberry that seems to fit their product.
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So the first strawberry was a milkshakey, creamy strawberry, but quite natural, almost like a strawberry yogurt. Not a very artificial and sweet type of strawberry milkshake. And the second one was more a, confectionary strawberry.
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So again, this one. So this one was very artificial. So we had one strawberry that tasted more natural and the other one that tasted more confectionary artificial and they both tasted very good in the product.
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But then we had to remind ourselves, what is your target consumers? Why are your consumers going for you? What is your brand image? And suddenly we realized like the target consumers wanted something that was very natural.
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That's why they want, that's why they were going to this brand. It was the naturalness. Not using additive, not using artificial ingredients. So having a flavour that I say more natural fit the brand, their image and their target consumers.
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Having something that is very confectionary, even though the flavouring was natural, it was a natural ingredient, but the perception was more of something that was artificial. So it would probably have created a clash in the mind of the their target consumers.
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If their target consumers were more Gen Z, they were playful, they love confectionery and nostalgia and things like that, that would be absolutely fine. You have to fit the flavours to your brand image and especially your target consumers because flavour perception is very important as well as the flavour profile.
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So again, it's never just a strawberry, a chicken flavour or lemon flavour. What are the different characteristics of this product? And all of these questions you have to ask yourself when you are developing your food or drink product. Because at the moment there is a war around flavours and taste, especially if you're in the vegan or in a functional space, which this product can be very challenging in terms of bitterness, earthy notes, fishy notes, etc.
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So all of these brands are always, see, we taste better, we taste the best. The flavors are incredible. Choose us because of the taste. Because this type of market are more and more crowded.
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You can't just have a very functional product and think this is enough. This is the war against flavours because everyone nowadays is using a, lot of mushrooms, Reiki mushroom, maca, ashwagandha, all of these incredible ingredients.
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Everyone does it now. So how can you make yourself differentiate from your competitors? You have to think as flavours as your USP in this crowded market and be the focal point of your product development.
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Ok, so if we recapitulate, the main reason why a food or drink product fell on the market is because of the flavors and we said is either because the flavors is too weak, unbalanced, unrecognizable, flat, or lacking complexity, or is not through enough and doesn't correspond to your target consumers and your brand image.
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I hope this episode is helpful for you and I will see you tomorrow. Bye.
