“Now in its sixth year, the BNPAs has become the most widely acknowledged seal of approval for Canadian consumers—and with good reason,” says Levy.
“Each year’s survey not only provides us with valuable insights on current products and innovations,” states Levy, “but also the larger movements and shifts in Canadians’ viewpoints and approaches toward what they purchase and why.
“It is an accurate gauge of consumer trends and attitudes, looking at a wide range of factors that influence decision-making, including healthier options, convenience, value for money, and especially packaging and the environment,” asserts Levy.
In fact, perceived environmental friendliness was the key factor behind the selection of the 2009 BNPA competition’s Best-in-Show winner—the Glad 100% Compostable/Biodegradable Kitchen Bags from household cleaning supplies manufacturer Clorox.
“It seems that we have passed the tipping point when it comes to the environment,” says Levy, pointing out that 90 per cent of the surveyed Canadian consumers believe that CPG manufacturers still have a long way to go toward reducing the amount of packaging used for their products to more acceptable levels.
And while 76 per cent of polled consumers said it’s important for them to purchase more eco-friendly products, 83 per cent believe that some companies are exploiting the “environmentally-friendly” claims of their brands for marketing purposes.
As for the competition’s Best-in-Packaging award, the Hershey Company’s tasteful graphic treatment of the 165-gram stand-up pouch of Hershey’s Bliss Milk Chocolate with a Meltaway Truffle Centre gave the iconic chocolate-maker a well-earned top prize, with the Dove Go Fresh Body Wash named the top package in the Personal Care category, and the Green Works Natural All-Purpose Cleaners taking the best-package honors in the household goods category.
The 2009 BPNA’s extensive survey findings have been summarized in BrandSpark’s detailed Canadian Grocery Shopper Study, which highlights a number of interesting, and sometimes surprising, trends currently guiding the Canadian shoppers’ purchasing decisions:
- More consumers (28 per cent) consider it important for a product to be all-natural, compared to 17 per cent who strongly prefer the product to be organic;
- Almost eight out of 10 consumers look for products with added benefits from their ingredients—specifically citing the presence of calcium, fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, whole grains and Omega-3 acids—with healthy living and weight-loss picked as the top two health concerns underpinning this trend;
- Brand familiarity only ranks as the 11th most important factor influencing consumers to purchase a new product from a total of 17 such defined “drivers,” with better value for the money topping the list, followed by better product quality, and by longer-lasting product life;
- Roughly six out of 10 Canadian consumers believe that the private-label store brands offer as high product quality as their brand-name counterparts;
- While 40 per cent of consumers believe that brand-name products are more innovative than their private-label competitors, 68 per cent say that private-label products still offer extremely good value for the money.
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