Nestlé International Travel Retail (NITR) is focusing on the role of added value through increased customer engagement in travel retail.
NITR unveiled the latest innovations from its three core brands, Nestlé Swiss, Smarties and KitKat, at last week’s TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference in Singapore. A recently-refreshed travel shopping-exclusive Nestlé Swiss targets gifting, sharing and self-treats. New KitKat lines include KitKat Senses, five-finger wafer bars available as individual units in re-closable packaging.
Nestlé International Travel Retail General Manager Stewart Dryburgh spoke to The Moodie Davitt Report about Smarties’ new approach in travel retail, which targets children’s play and parents’ product satisfaction.
“Smarties is a fantastic story we are cracking into. We are quite excited about what we have done,” he said.
“One of the challenges is to ensure that permissibility from a parental standpoint is there so that parents feel comfortable with the brand and its products. Being the parents’ ally and the child’s friend, that’s where you want to be.”
Dryburgh explained that NITR collaborated with an early learning centre to gauge how it could add value to Smarties in a way that parents would appreciate and children would enjoy. The partnership, he said, centred on a ‘play is a child’s work’ theme and identified three different ways of learning for children: think, create and discover.
“How we are going to communicate with parents in the future will be based on these three pillars to ensure we offer real added value,” Dryburgh said.
The Smarties Creatorbook, spotlighted at the Singapore show, fits with this philosophy. The novelty provides inflight entertainment for children through an activity and colouring book which comes with a 130g giant tube of Smarties. The Creatorbook includes pencils and stickers and can be refilled.
Targeting Chinese consumers
Dryburgh noted a “very positive” start to 2018 and said projections for the next 12 months were strong. A “certain buoyancy” in the Asia Pacific region was driven by Chinese consumers, he added.
Despite the increase in spend from Chinese customers, Dryburgh noted that they consume much less confectionery than many other nationalities.
“Confectionery is not a category that they [Chinese consumers] were born with; they have not grown with the habit of chocolate consumption so there is a challenge for us all in terms of engaging the Chinese consumer and getting him or her into the category.”
Dryburgh highlighted that Chinese consumers’ growing spend in travel retail across different categories is not being matched in confectionery.
“It’s not just about encouraging them to increase confectionery consumption. They will buy. The challenge for us, or the opportunity, lies in how we tailor our communication and engagement, given the fact that their social media frameworks, and their purchasing habits, are driven by what’s happening on WeChat, AliPay, and the likes.
“All the tools they have are very distinct to the Chinese market. If you want to talk a seamless shopping experience, I believe the Chinese consumers are far more advanced than we are. We need to understand how they shop; we need to engage more.”
Considering the global trend towards healthy snacking, Dryburgh said NITR had identified a “huge opportunity” particularly in inflight snacks. He hinted at the development of new lines which would be revealed at TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes later this year.
