Today’s Brands Should Make Our Life Easier: Common Sense?

Utilitarianism Marketing

As fancy as the term sounds, it has a simple theme: Give the people what they want. Today’s consumer appreciates a brand that takes the time to hone in and offer what they truly need, instead of just pushing out traditional marketing messages to buy, buy, buy (although it might be on a Facebook page instead of in the newspaper, it is still coming from inside the comfortable old marketing box). Mitch Joel makes a great point in his blog post, The Value of Utilitarianism Marketing: “If you give something to people that they actually want to use.... no, need to use, they will love you and be loyal to you forever.”

Buy Me a Pie!

My take on this starts on a Tuesday: Grocery Day (only because it's student discount day!). It is my least favorite day of the week. I have classes until 4:20pm, and then I rush over to Sobeys to load up for the week before heading home to help manage a busy household. At this point I’m exhausted, and thinking about what I need to do to get in and out of the grocery store.

Thankfully, I have something that helps get me through it. The Buy Me a Pie mobile application is a simple, yet USEFUL, grocery list app that lets me:

• Type in what I need, in my own words (i.e. KD, mayo, Sophie’s prescription, etc…)

• Remember what I typed in the past by entering the first few letters

• Custom colour-code and sort items based on type (like produce, frozen, or toiletries)

• Cross out items while shopping with the tap of a finger (plus move them out of my way, so only my remaining list items show)

• Make multiple lists for multiple stores or categories (back to school, for example)

I am simply one of those people that NEEDS a list to make it out of the grocery store with something that resembles what we need for the week ahead. To me, it’s apparent that this app wants to help me get in and out of the grocery store as quickly as possible (honestly, who doesn’t want that?). Although I may think this is common sense to most consumers, branded grocery store apps don’t seem to get it (Oh, you want me to hang around your store as long as possible and buy more stuff?).

Are Grocery Stores Listening?

Let’s look at an example. The Sobeys mobile application is promoted as a useful grocery shopping tool in their promotional video. It is really well done, I was almost convinced that it could make my life easier. Yet if you look closely, the app’s true focus is on promoting sale items, offering recipes, and pushing strategic partners. Although it does include a list feature that you can check off as you shop, and you can sync it with recipes that are promoted in the app, it clearly assumes that I am shopping at Sobeys and nowhere else (not surprising). If you’re like me, comparison shopping is routine, and I’m certainly not going to use a separate app for each store.

All of this brings me to the question: Why doesn’t Sobeys know me? They don’t seem to recognize that (although I am a frequent customer) I shop at other stores too, or that I don’t really need recipe suggestions (I have Pinterest for that!). I just want something SIMPLE and USEFUL to get me through grocery shopping. I don’t take the time to plan meals (any other guilty parties here?) and my kids are super fussy, so the same old items are on my list and I just want to get them and get out!

Old Box vs. New Box

The answer to this question: The same old marketing box. As a consumer (and a marketer) I feel like Sobeys wants me in their store, and only their store, for as long as possible. They want me to love Jamie Oliver and all of their suggested recipes and sale items. There are so many traditional marketing and consumer behaviour concepts I’ve learned about that relate to what Sobeys is doing. But the world is changing, marketing is changing, and the consumer is changing. Although we have a foundation of valuable and proven marketing techniques, we need to learn to build on them…and apply them to the new box.

In my opinion, Utilitarianism Marketing is a great piece to add to our new marketing box. Today’s brands can play an essential part in making our lives easier, without us having to endure blatant (or hidden) sales messages in exchange for giving us something useful.

Do you have a shopping app that you just can’t live without? Is it a vehicle for incessant commercial content, or is it truly made to be useful? Mitch Joel offers additional insight (and relates to my frustrations with grocery shopping) in another post: Great Marketing is Utilitarian.

#grocerystore #shopping #sobeys #buymeapie #utilitarianismmarketing