Grocery Guru Ep16: Using Shopper Language

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the sixteenth episode of Grocery Guru: The Importance of Using Shopper Language in your category.

Not using industry terms or category terms because they are creating the buffer for what should be created. By eradicating industry terminology you will discover opportunities to communicate better with your shopper and then sell more.

You Can Read the Full Using Shopper Language Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to Episode 16 of the Grocery Guru with Andrew Grant. How are you?

Andrew Grant:

Hi, Darren. Good morning. Yeah. Very nippy I think is the best thing to say this morning.

Darren A. Smith:

It's supposed to get to minus 10, but let's move on from how cold it is. Last week, we said to our viewers that this week we would talk about terminology. Now, I'm going to lead the charge on this one, because something that we're doing wrong as an industry, or as category managers, or as suppliers, or as supermarkets, is when we use terminology that the shopper doesn't understand.

Do you know the shopper's language?

 

Darren A. Smith:

And I'm going to give you an example. My dad used to run, he was a project manager in a Sainsbury's store back in the 70s. And they used to have those three-legged tables and he used to have the best top fruit display in the area. "But Dad, what's top fruit?" So Andrew, what's top fruit?

Andrew Grant:

Do you know, is top fruit, apples, oranges, and bananas?

Darren A. Smith:

Well, it's apples and pears, but I didn't know. I had to ask that. So there were the signs that say top fruit and I'm thinking, "Well, no one understands what top fruit is." When I asked that, he didn't know. So eventually, some years ago, I asked some guru in produce. And he said, "Well it's top fruit because it grows at the top of the tree."

Andrew Grant:

Okay. Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

These can't be terms we can use in our industry if the shopper doesn't understand them.

Andrew Grant:

Well, I guess also, going back to your dad in the 70s, there's a lot of stuff. Obviously, supermarkets kicked off in the 70s in terms of the superstore format. And there's probably terminology that was invented back then, maybe meant something to customers back then. But because most people are used to sticking their dinner in a microwave and heating it up for two minutes, it's been lost. I mean, the one that gets me, condiments. Does the average millennial know what a condiment is? Would they expect to wear it rather than eating it?

Darren A. Smith:

That's condiments. So, our challenge to our viewers is, the more we can use language that the shopper understands, the easier the category is to shop.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

And the flip side of that coin, the more we use examples that the shopper doesn't understand, the less easy it is for them to shop, the more they'll go somewhere else. So I wanted to give you another short story.

Darren A. Smith:

I was buying frozen fish for a supermarket, many years ago. And in the conversation I used to have on the phone with my account manager, we called two products, the most popular selling battered frozen fish, 076 and 077, which was their scheme number because we could differentiate it away from 079 and 080. That's crazy.

Andrew Grant:

Well, I guess internally it's not an issue. There's a whole industry lexicon of three-letter acronyms, isn't there?

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

Or four letter acronyms. There's your GSC, your PORS, your LFLS. Those never, if you like, leak out to the shopper. So I guess that's okay. It's the stuff that gets in the shopper's face that they just don't get. I mean, to flip the condiments one on its head, one of the more modern categories in world foods. Now, world foods. Okay. Pretty broad category. But why does just about every supermarket spit out pasta? Because I think pasta's a world food, isn't it?