Can Innovations Lacking Benefits Explanations

In 1990, A.G. Lafley, general manager of laundry products for Procter & Gamble, announced his bold decision. He directed that P&G laundry detergents be henceforth manufactured in denser formulations and sold in smaller containers. The upsides were obvious. Lower package, warehousing, and transportation costs. Easier to persuade retailers to allocate shelf space for the products. What made Mr. Lafley’s decision courageous is that consumer surveys indicated only a small percentage of laundry detergent shoppers said they’d prefer the format. He proceeded anyway, depending on reports that most of those surveyed were indifferent to the change.
     The decision paid off for P&G. Customers liked the packaging innovation once they experienced the results. The decision also probably contributed to Mr. Lafley later being chosen as P&G’s CEO.
     I’m aware of no evidence that consumers considered the laundry detergent to be inferior because of the smaller package. But laundry detergent is a commodity product with high substitutability potential. What about consumer reactions to packaging innovations with wine, where the choice process is more complex? The answer from studies at University of Central Florida and Murray State University is that non-traditional packaging tends to lower purchase intentions.
     The researchers’ explanation is that shoppers expected the wine to taste worse. This held true when people were shown pictures of the wine sold in a can compared to wine sold in the traditional 750 ml bottle. The effect was also seen when people tasted the wine and were led to believe it had been poured from a can compared to taste judgments from people led to believe the wine had been poured from a bottle.
     An aluminum can doesn’t look anything like a glass bottle, while a compact laundry detergent container looks like a large laundry detergent container. The parallel for a 750 ml wine bottle would be a miniature bottle. The researchers surmise that the further the deviation in wine packaging from the traditional, the higher the probability consumers will consider the product to be inferior to the traditional.
     Build innovation acceptance by articulating benefits of the change for the consumer. Also make the unfamiliar familiar by starting with innovations which resemble the traditional, then guide customers toward the even less traditional. Radical innovations carrying clear benefits are better accepted when introduced by a dominant brand. The dominant brand introduction changes people’s perceptions of what an alternative in that product category should be like.

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