75% of
Americans say that they eat healthy. But
more than 80% of Americans fail to eat the recommended daily amount of fruits
and vegetables. (Aubrey & Godoy, 2016)
Perhaps
part of the problem is confusion about what is healthy. 71% of people think granola bars are healthy,
but only 28% of nutritionists agree. And,
while 75% of nutritionists agree that sushi is healthy only 49% of the public
agrees. Definitely a disconnect. (Quealy
& Sanger-Katz, 2016)
But
where does that leave beverage marketers?
Should they be bringing out healthier choices, or just tastier
ones? Perhaps there is a clue in actual
sales data.
Last
year Diageo PLC launched Smirnoff Ice
Smash. It is fruit-flavored with 8%
alcohol by volume. It was their most
successful launch ever in convenience stores - with 600% sales growth in the
past six months.
On the
other hand spiked seltzers, which are healthier than alcopops - sugar-free,
with fewer calories - were up 169% last year.
Right
now it appears that alcopops are the bigger market, with $1.14 billion in sales
last year, versus $488 million for spiked seltzers. (Chaudhuri, 2019)
Does
that mean that we should not believe what people say in surveys? Or it is possible that what they say is a
leading indicator and eventually sales of healthier beverages will be stronger
than those of unhealthy ones? How would
you know?
Is it
possible that we are dealing with two different consumers? What makes them different? Could additional research shed more light on
the issue? How would you structure it?
If you
worked for a beverage company, what would your next launch be?
Aubrey,
A. & Godoy, M. (2016, August 3) 75
Percent of Americans Say They Eat Healthy - Despite Evidence To The
Contrary. npr.org. Retrieved September
4, 2019, from
Quealy,
K. & Sanger-Katz, M. (2016, July 5) Is Sushi 'Healthy'? What About Granola? Where Americans And
Nutritionists Disagree. nytimes.com. Retrieved September 4, 2019, from
Chaudhuri,
S. (2019, April 3) What Health Kick?
Young Americans Still Thirst for Alcopops.
wsj.com. Retrieved September 4, 2019, from
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-health-kick-young-americans-still-thirst-for-alcopops-11554296401
8 comments:
There really shouldn't be a “connection” between healthy and alcohol. Sure they can attempt to make some alcoholic beverages “healthier” than others. As we see in this blog post, the growth in spiked and alcopops is booming more than ever. But from the evidence in this blog post, we see that alcopops that are less healthy are more popular. To go off of my statement of the disconnect between the words “healthy” and “alcohol” it is because people who lead a healthier lifestyle understand the health benefits of not drinking. Any “healthy” alcoholic drink is really not all that good for you.
Personally, even though they claim is that they are healthier- it really all stems from the marketing and the terms they use to sell the product. People see the words “sugar-free” or “fruit” and their brain automatically uses word association for healthy.
To me, a healthy drink is not a “sugar-free” drink. Anytime you see sugar-free, there should be a complete shift of focus into what the other ingredients the drink contains. You’ll most likely see ingredients that you cannot pronounce. If I were to launch a beverage for a company it would be leveraging on organic products and only ingredients that you can buy directly from the produce section. If you were to drink this product, I would hone in on the fact that they are all-natural and ingredients that you can pronounce. For example, the drink could be a spiked green-tea that is sweetened and flavored with organic manuka honey with fresh lemonade. Boom, all clean ingredients we can pronounce and know there's nothing processed. This drink would be a drink you could find somewhere in a natural grocer or a Whole Foods. The Americans that fall into that percentage of consuming their daily amounts of fruits and vegetables seem to be more health-conscious and understand the importance of consuming clean and fresh ingredients instead of processed “sugar-free” junk.
People have different visions of what is healthy and what is not. Not everyone knows what is good for their health (otherwise nutritionists would be out of a job). From a company stand point, the primary objective is to generate revenue. Their customer's health comes second. This is the reason why Granola bars for instance are considered by many consumers as "healthy". The packeting is well thought: "organic colors" (generally white, green or brown) and some fruits picture to emphasize on the health aspect. The TV ads for those bars are also very well made e.g. granola bars preparation: a big bowl with milk, honey and fruits all mixed together. A child would probably be doing the voice-over as well.
My personal opinion would be in order not to fool the customers looking to start healthy habits, to classify the products or simply give them a score (100 would be the healthiest and 0 would be the worst for your health). Eventually, those practices would have to be State instated which is not an immediate option. Although, for customers who seek to determine what product is better for their health, some apps already exist already exist to help you make the "healthier choice".
Allan C.
Due to the development of economy and technology, more and more general people care about the healthy food choice. Everyone want to live longer, which is human nature. Back to the launch of Diet Coca-Cola or Coke Zero, they are really not considered as healthy drink compare to the original coke because these sugar-free products used the artificial sweetener that even worse than the sugar. However, these products can catch the vast amount of customers because three in four American adults had the issue of overweight. For this market segmentation, beverage company could easily make the profit by using the good taste drink.
In the real life, majority of people will choose the beverage that looks like healthy. The reason is very obvious, it is only a drink which is cheap and fast consumption. Also, the barrier to entry is low because it is easily replaceable. With a quick word of mouth, the sales can reach high. Thus, what they say is a big factor to lead the sales.
Therefore, we still need to trust what people said during the survey. I think the differences in reality may cause by the low entry barrier to get different drink. If I work for the beverage company, my target launch place is the gas station. America is known by the country on wheels, 3.5 millions of truck drivers and lots of people doing road trip. These people are no wonder thirsty on the freeway. The gas station is the place they can never avoid, which create the perfect opportunity for launching new beverage.
Christopher Diaz
I definitely think there is a disconnect between what is healthy and unhealthy when it comes to nutrition. I believe that all bodies were made differently which means they react differently to all types of food and beverages. According to the 2018 food & health survey (foodinsight,online) 80% of people that took the 21 minute survey say they came across conflicting information about nutrition. Another staggering statistic is 59% of these people say this conflicting information made them doubt their choices (foodinsight,online). This has been a regular issue with people not knowing exactly what is healthy and what isn’t and also how to filter the information they get from social and news media. Another key finding in the survey was familiarity, this was as major proponent in most consumers sticking to their regular choice (foodinsight,online).
Most people would agree that eating fruits and vegetables are healthy choices, but as I learned researching this topic, it's not so clear cut as you may believe. The two main reasons Americans consumed less fruits and vegetables and more protein was because of cost and lack of access to good fruits/vegetables (foodinsight,online). This was the best finding of the survey to me because it showed sort of a behavior pattern as to why people are consuming less fruits and sticking to more of the protein. I think if Americans were to research and educate themselves more on their diets or eating we would also see less of fast food consumption and more of healthy eating that can lead to longer life expectancy and less stress.
Foodinsight.org, International Food information council foundation
2018 Food & Health Survey, Multimedia online (2018)
https://foodinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-FHS-Report-FINAL.pdf
In my opinion, beverage marketers should bring out “tastier” choices, regarding alcoholic beverages. When I hear people comment on drinks containing alcohol, they always seem to be concerned with the flavor; if it’s tasty, they’ll drink it. There are two different consumers concerning this post; the average person and the “health nut,” but as stated before, those who are overly health conscious wouldn’t be likely to even bother consuming alcohol in the first place. The correlation between alcohol and health IS existent, but I feel that those who choose to imbibe are aware of the risks and couldn’t care less about the caloric or sugar content of their alcoholic beverage... as long as it tastes good enough, which is why I believe alcopops have significantly surpassed spiked seltzers in sales. Surveys can give useful insight, but they are fallible. Sample populations chosen may not represent the actual population well or the survey may be tainted by various biases. In this case, I do not believe that healthier beverages will be stronger than those of unhealthy ones… not in America anyway. I think alcoholic beverages are similar to fast food; of course, there are healthier options, but McDonald’s (the unhealthy contender) wins every time. If I worked for a beverage company, my next launch would be a drink with all the desired potency of alcohol with none of the taste; I’m sure it would be a best seller.
Huiwen Xu:
In the beverage market, more and more people are paying attention to drinking healthy, calorie-free drinks. The most representative of these is the Diet Coke from Coke. But is Diet Coke really healthy? Although the trademark is marked with 0 calories, Coke still uses saccharin and xylitol. On the surface, the beverage seems to be healthy, but it is still far less healthy and natural.
If I work in a beverage company, I will label the next product: a healthy vegetable and fruit-flavored beverage, and launch the beverage in an office gathering area, a student gathering area where there are more people in daily life. This kind of drink can provide the nutrients needed by the human body, and it is not too obese, suitable for people who work and study.
I strongly agree with the idea that confusion about what is healthy made a big contribution to the survey result. Most of the public are non-experts on what is healthy, and they could hardly tell which product is healthier than the others. However, Americans are becoming more aware of the importance of eating healthily. Thus, I would believe that if a product that is less healthy than the others, but have a much better marketing strategy to make the customer believe that the product is healthy, most of the customers would be more likely to purchase it that the others.
Since people are becoming more health-conscious, I personally believe that the survey result could be used as a leading indicator that eventually sales of healthier beverages will be stronger than those of unhealthy ones if all the other factors such as marketing strategies, size of company are equally.
I believe that there are different types of consumers that companies are dealing with. Some prefer to taste over healthy, and others prefer to healthy over taste. Each customer would have their own preference due to their different background, living environment and other possible reasons.
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