As an organization who works in the shopper marketing, we are sometimes surprised that some companies seem to leave their marketing creativity at the door to the store. The engage team recently visited a number of convenience stores in Bangkok to observe what major green tea brands were doing in-store to drive sales – and we were surprised to see very little in the way of promotions or displays, thus missing out on in-store marketing opportunities ; this is especially bewildering for a product category that is known to be extremely competitive, and very creative with their out-of-store promotions.
Oishi and Ichitan – Thailand’s Green Tea Giants
When the green tea hype started in Thailand about ten years ago with the launch of Oishi green tea, many thought it was merely a fad that wouldn’t last long. Now we know that wasn’t the case! This lucrative market was valued at over 13 billion Baht (about 435 million USD) in 2012, with the key competing brands being Oishi (owned by ThaiBev, one of Southeast Asia’s largest beverage companies) and Ichitan (owned by Tan Passakornnatee – the self-made millionaire who founded Oishi Group in 1999, and later launched Oishi green tea before selling it to Thai Bev in 2008).
Oishi and Ichitan are known for being creative and extremely aggressive in their out-of-store promotional campaigns. The brands often lure consumers to purchase their drinks in exchange for very attractive prizes – money, cars, and gold, for instance. Usually prizes are written under the caps of the green tea bottles.
A Look at Oishi and Ichitan’s In-store Marketing Efforts
At engage, we regularly go out and visit stores (as Mike Anthony says in his blog “Too Busy To Visit Stores? No Excuse!” – there is no excuse) – we go in groups and meet up to discuss afterwards – we share our findings, learn from each other, and it’s good fun outside of the office.
The team in Thailand recently visited a a number of convenience stores and retailers in Bangkok – 7-Eleven, Tops Market, and Tesco to investigate what green tea brands where doing in-store. In the drinks fridge, Oishi and Ichitan were always placed side-by-side. In general, Oishi enjoyed more shelf space. In the bigger stores, both brands were placed on the endcaps along the end of shopping aisles. What’s interesting is that we hardly saw any significant or prominent promotions or displays – definitely nothing that would bear resemblance to the brands’ major giveaways. At most, a few of the SKU’s were on discount by a few Baht.
What also caught our interest was the number SKU’s that were available – there were UHT boxes in 250ml, bottles in the 300-500 ml range, cans in the 300ml range, and big bottles of 1 liter or more. In how many ways or contexts can one drink green tea? We felt the large number of SKU’s was confusing – how are these 5 bottles of tea different? Is it just the size? Or flavor? Or ingredients? This may lead to more time taken to consider purchase (and more possibly of rejecting the purchase altogether!), rather than the purchase being an easy, quick grab-and-go buy.
Multiple SKU’s make sense in terms of addressing different consumption environments and contexts – glass bottles are suited for restaurants, liter bottles are ideal for families to drink at home – however, placing them all together side-by-side in-store might do more harm than good.
Lack of In-Store Marketing – A Missed Opportunity?
Our survey of Oishi and Ichitan left us with a few interesting observations –
- Because of the lack of attractive in-store promotions or displays, we wondered whether the brands felt that their out-of-store campaigns were enough to get people to buy? Yes, some cravers of green tea would recall the giveaways when they choose their drink from the fridge, but what about the other group of shoppers who don’t really care about the prizes? Are Oishi and Ichitan missing any opportunities here and leaving the actual purchase to chance?
- How sustainable are the giveaway campaigns – yes, it should create trial and yes, it should increase sales during the promotional period – but what happens after? Without additional in-store stimuli, will awards-seekers continue to purchase the brands? More importantly, since both brands are having similar out-of-store campaigns, there is hardly any differentiation among the two!
- And while waging war with each other, the green tea giants must not overlook competition from other categories – the number and variety of beauty drinks, for example, have quickly multiplied and gained popularity these past few years. And they’re definitely looking for ways to steal both shelf space and consumers!
Brands must constantly evaluate their overall marketing efforts to make sure that they’re focusing their budgets at the right channels. While out-of-store campaigns may drive sales during the promotion period – if sales are not sustained post-promotion, brands should be exploring other in-store opportunities that could yield a more profitable, sustainable return.