Buried amongst the doom and gloom of spending cuts, rising prices and military action, the Government recently decided that it wanted us to be happy; and, just to make sure, it is going to measure how happy we are. It’s interesting that brands don’t really overtly tell consumers they will make them happy so tend not to measure this directly. So who’s got it right? Rather than settle this the Harry Hill way (“Fight!”) we asked our consumer consultation community - the Engage Brain – what they thought happiness was all about and how it related to brands. Here’s what they said.

First of all it seems that there is more to happiness than just being happy. Our community told us that there are really two kinds of happiness – short term “joy” and longer term “contentment”. (Interestingly this matches academic thinking in this area which defines two forms of happiness “dynamic” and “peaceful”).

Our consumers say that both are necessary – joy provides the highs, the hits of happiness, the peaks to our days that keep us going through the troughs. However underlying contentment with who you are, what you are doing, the people you are surrounded by, where you are going ...is more fundamental and somehow more authentic. As one consumer put it short term happiness is what we all want, but long term contentment is what we probably really need.

Another theme in consumers’ definition & discussion of happiness is the idea of the smaller things making a bigger difference. In fact the disproportionate joy that finding a misplaced favourite novel, your partner coming home early from work, the stereotypical child’s smile can give makes those small things so significant in contributing to longer term happiness.

On the other side of the equation the things which make people unhappy also fall into short term irritations and longer term disappointments, stresses or problems. So whilst short term joy can alleviate the anxiety of missing a friend, worrying about a sick relative, feeling insecure about jobs and finances, these longer term issues do not go away and how we deal with many of these things being out of our control ultimately has a greater effect on how happy we are.

Short term irritations get people very angry in the moment, and can sour relationships with people and so with brands – rudeness, unfairness, waste, other people’s bad behaviour or bad moods are all common everyday downers for our consumers!

So where do brands fit into all this. Well consumers tend to lump brands (and consumption generally) into the “short term joy” category. There are some exceptions, but the general feeling is that brands should focus on bringing moments of happiness rather than trying to make us fundamentally more content (which they will not be able to achieve).
This is because people feel (indeed they know from experience) that buying something, however fabulous, provides short term elation, a hit of happy, but that this rarely lasts beyond the point of purchase or first use. So even though we might not be able to buy long term happiness, brands can offer a welcome distraction from the challenges and anxieties of everyday life. How do consumers feel they do that?
Well they can simply amuse us – consumers consistently feed back to us that they love funny or warm ads (the Andrex puppy, The Specsavers mistaken identity kiss, the BT Adam & Jane story) whilst ads which are probably effective through irritation (Compare the Market, Go Compare are examples that were shared by consumers) really tick them off.
Consumers tell us that brands can also make people feel happy by making them feel special; this might be through the experience they provide or by reinforcing their choice, again one consumer put it thus : a reinforcement of our good judgement, our cleverness for selecting it in the first place, for using our discriminatory senses and not buying something inferior. I bought the very best – and I am happy.
Brands can also make us happy by being happy brands. A brand with a bright, fresh image or a personality which exudes positive warmth, can lift a consumer’s mood (Persil, Top Shop, Heinz all do this, consumers tell us, but in different ways). Brands which play on our guilt, make us feel needy, create want where need doesn’t really exist – consumers know that these brands might be successful but they do not make us happy!
Brands can also contribute to longer term happiness by having an honest, human relationship with consumers, by keeping promises or making things right when they have gone wrong; by rewarding loyalty; by delivering a succession of joyous moments to consumers to keep them going through their bad patches. In fact focusing on the smaller things in life seems to be a blueprint for greater happiness.
So brands don’t need to try and make us happy to be successful, but as life gets more grim brands which adopt this strategy might be more successful than those which are seen as more cynical. So if they are concerned with making consumers happy brands should take these simple steps :
• Think small, not big
• Think personality as much as product
• Make promises that you can keep...and keep them
• Reward me, genuinely, realistically for my loyalty
• Surprise me
• Deliver serial joy, everyday happiness hits

Simple as that.

It’s that time of year again. The Comic Relief bandwagon rolls into town this week with Red Nose Day 2011 and your chance to do something ‘funny for money’.

But increasingly it feels like it’s becoming ‘buy something funny, slightly funny or only vaguely connected with the event…for money”, as Red Nose Day – like most major charities – becomes intrinsically bound up with major retail brands.

We’re not knocking Comic Relief. Far from it. It’s a fantastic charity doing amazing work and we’re sporting our monster noses as we write. The association with major brands and retailers is logical; it spreads the word about the event and, through mass product marketing, adds significantly to the charity’s coffers. And, at a time when charities are suffering because of the economic downturn, we understand that perfectly. Indeed, where there has been a long term association with a brand – for example Sainsbury’s and TK Maxx with Comic Relief or Tesco’s ten year support for the Race for Life – the relationship seems perfectly natural.

But more so than ever this year, it seems, there are Comic Relief products on our shelves that make you question the extent of genuine altruism and the extent to which there is a rush for any brand to link itself to Comic Relief. Has the charity reached brand overload this year and does the consumer see through that?

So far this year, I’ve eaten my Jimmy Con Carrne and Stephen Fry-up crisps for Comic Relief, munched on my Kellogg’s Comic Relief Rice Krispies Squares with edible noses, supported the Mini Babybel and Comic Relief Guinness World Record attempt for the most jokes told in a one-hour relay, washed my clothes with a special pack of Ariel Liquitab, eaten some
Carte D'or Chocolate Inspiration Comic Relief ice cream, spread Comic Relief Flora Buttery spread on my bread to have with my salad, that’s dressed with Hellmann's Balsamic Salad Dressing, with a proportion of the price going to Comic Relief. I’ve even sprayed myself with Impulse True Love Body Fragrance and seen 5p from the special pack donated to Comic Relief. You have to question whether any brand is really recognised for its association with the charity in such a crowded field. And that’s before I’ve bought any ‘official’ Comic Relief merchandise.

This in itself isn’t inherently wrong. Comic Relief is a great national event, a time for everyone – brands included – to come together in a combined endeavour. But are we reaching the point when the novelty wears off if anyone can be persuaded to buy a product in aid of Comic Relief when only a matter of a few pence is actually finding its way to the charity? And how can smaller charities possibly be able to compete with this?

You don’t need to be in such a crowded field to do good, be seen to do good and yet remain true to the values of the brand. Waitrose champions local charities by giving shoppers a token to give to one of three charities local to each store every month; similarly Marks & Spencer has been running its range of pink products for Breakthrough for a number of years.

The risk here for brands is quite simple. The more crowded the charity association, the more likely they are to be seen to be associating simply to avoid being seen as not associating. And therein lies the potential for brands to be accused of riding the Comic Relief bandwagon. Charities and brands should be a natural fit, but it may sit better with consumers for brands to build their alliances with charities with which there isn’t such an obvious commercial clamour. The brand still fulfils its CSR obligation, a needy cause still benefits and yet the brand creates some stand-out from the crowd and becomes a leader rather than a follower. Plus, and I say this still wearing my nose, there are other causes worthy of brands’ support.

Last week Nestle’s Dolce Gusto became the first example of paid product placement on British television when it appeared on ITV’s This Morning in what is rumoured to be a three- month, £100,000 deal.

But with recent research suggesting that most UK consumers do not believe product placement will increase their likelihood of purchasing particular brands, will product placement change the balance of brands’ marketing mixes? And what should brands consider?

Product placement is nothing new. It has been a feature of films and American television for some time – remember the specific car brands driven in different movies by James Bond or the blurred out Coca Cola cups on the judges’ desk in American Idol.

Indeed the 9.5 minute video for Lady Gaga’s single ‘Telephone’ featured at least ten different brands, including Virgin Mobile, Diet Coke, and Polaroid. And yet, she was accused of commercial opportunism.
So will product placement work for brands in the UK or could it leave consumers feeling dubious about both brand and media property?
Our view is that consumers are not really in a position to judge the effectiveness of product placement. It will likely prove as effective – or possibly more so - than other forms of "ambient" media, but what they can provide are the parameters for acceptability. A gratuitous product taking over a shot or scene will likely irritate whereas a relevant product or brand used in a natural setting or sitting inertly on the sidelines likely to be more acceptable.

Conversely using actual brands rather than either made up brands (bottles of ‘fake’ lager in the Vic on Eastenders) or products with their labels covered (from Big Brother to Blue Peter etc.) could become less distracting and maybe even less noticeable, as there will be less conflict between what we expect to see (familiar, branded products) and what we actually see (made up/covered up).

So the message to brands – make certain your placement clearly makes sense. Don’t be seduced by television, choose the property based on its synergy with the brand and its relevance to your target market (research can help you with this) and ensure the brand or product is set in a correct context. The setting should feel as authentic and 'real' as your brand does in the ‘real world’. If you achieve this, then success is possible when used in selective, tactical bursts.

If there’s one sector doing particularly well in the current economic downturn, it’s the group buying market.

Groupon, which is leading the way in the UK, has nearly 2.5 million users and has become one of the top 50 most visited sites in the UK. And now, rumour has it that Internet giant Google is set to launch a daily discount service of its own - Google Offers - to compete with Groupon, Incahoot and others.

Worldwide Groupon reportedly had sales of $760 million in 2010 and is said to be targeting revenue in 2011 in excess of $1 billion. It’s big business.

The appeal is easy to see. Rather than paying the full price, group buying websites allow users to join forces to take advantage of special offers on experiences, restaurants and hotels. The sites use the group buying power of their members to negotiate discounts on products and services that consumers are looking for.

It represents something of a cultural shift. Until now there has been a dichotomy in modern life between “standing out and fitting in”. Whereas ‘standing out’ has tended to be “winning” in recent years, many developments - not least social networking and the re-emergence of the fundamental human need to connect and be sociable - suggest that “fitting in” might be becoming more important once again.

So with the group buying concept seemingly set to flourish, brands need to understand the implications for their own communication with consumers. In recent years, the whole thrust of development of brand messaging, communications, and even innovation has been to achieve as much individualisation as possible. Now it might seem that the pendulum may be swinging back to collectivism. This will require brands to adopt different strategies and a different tone of voice.

Nobody has done this more naturally than T-Mobile with its flash-mob advertising and the theme of “life’s for sharing” which contrasts campaigns that focus so heavily on the needs of the individual, like L’Oreal’s “because you’re worth it.

Brands need to appreciate what the group consumer approach might mean for their brand. It may require brands to talk less about “me” and the themes of individual empowerment, individual expression and individual needs, and more about “us” and how their brand can help customers connect with other people and what it means to be a part of a social group.

The Centre for Retail Research’s estimate that April’s royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton will provide a £515.5 million boost to retailers - with souvenirs bringing in £222 million – proves, as if proof was needed, that this is much more than just another set of nuptials.

But along with the official Royal Collection handmade plates, cups and pill boxes that feature the couple’s entwined initials in gold and silver, a whole host of very unofficial merchandise is hitting the market.

In addition to the recently launched “lavishly lubed” and “regally ribbed” Crown Jewel condoms, design agency KK Outlet is reporting strong interest in its unofficial royal wedding plates bearing the slogan ‘Thanks For The Extra Day Off’, whilst B&Q is preparing to fill its stores with commemorative royal wedding gnomes at £20 for the pair. And as if that wasn’t enough, a graduate from the Edinburgh College of Art is preparing a second run of Royal Wedding sick bags, which are decorated with a crown, a drawing of Prince William and Kate Middleton and the slogan, ‘Throne Up’. The first batch sold out almost immediately.

Is this a disrespectful slant on an important national occasion? Are we too reverential as a nation and is there any reason why brands should not treat the royal wedding with a bit of irreverence? Does this constitute having fun with the British population – or offending it? How big a risk is this for brands to take?

Sense of humour is, of course, important; it’s one of the factors that contribute to giving a brand a personality….but the personality must always match that of the brand’s natural customer base. This is a classic case of knowing and understanding the motivations of your consumers and your target market base and assessing the fine line between irreverence and offence.

If you know and understand your target market properly then irreverent products won’t offend a target base you know to be irreverent itself. Moreover, how great is the risk in offending people who aren’t going to buy your products anyway? Doesn’t that make the brand edgy and therefore more appealing to its core customer base?

The royal wedding together with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next year present massive merchandising opportunities for retailers at a time when the economy remains suppressed. No retailer will want to miss out on that opportunity but creating a point of differentiation in what is and will be a crowded market will be key to commercial success. And understanding the motivations of your core customer base is central to that objective.

If everyone who had a Facebook account voted for The Social Network in the upcoming academy awards, the movie would walk away with every Oscar for which it is nominated. After all, currently more than 600 million of us are active users, including almost half the US population.

But all is not as it may seem in Facebook-world. What began in 2004 as a way for each of us to connect with old and new friends online, share embarrassing photographs we wish we hadn’t posted and let everyone know in real time what we’re doing, where we’re going and how we’re feeling has clearly become more than just that.

Spam has become the latest retro brand to implement a social media strategy to tell the brand's story and widen its appeal. The 70-year-old canned-meat brand will focus on promoting the ‘character of the brand’ through coupon distribution, competitions and special events, centred on social media.

It is against this background that Facebook is fast becoming the Tesco of the Internet; a ubiquitous, benign presence that is infiltrating every aspect of our lives. The sheer number of brands using Facebook is fast changing its character from being a site intended for social-connection towards what is almost a self-contained version of the Internet – a one-stop shop for life.

The beauty of Facebook was always that it was the product of its users; we controlled the content. Somehow we were in charge. By inviting such overt commercialism, is there a risk to its success when we conclude the Facebook is so all pervading? What will be particularly interesting is whether and how Facebook users kick back against this.

Brands are still trying to work out how to concentrate their efforts online. A social media presence is only really useful if it creates a genunie two-way conversation which works for both parties. Greggs do this particularly well, welcoming sandwich ideas and then putting them into practice. And the key – don’t be too slick about it. Social media was always intended as user-generated content and brands need to play by the same rules to be authentic and also need to judge if they are actually attracting new fans or merely engaging with consumers who have already been won over.

Twitter is, to an extent, still in the user-controlled stage from which Facebook appears to be emerging. Twitter saw how users dictated the features it wanted from the platform, which led to the creation of features hashtags and retweets. Individuals and brands seem to cohabit more naturally on Twitter, where brands seem less willing to overtly sell to consumers and more content in watching what they say and observing how they act. Perhaps it is this form of engagement that will lead to the happiest online relationship for brands and consumers alike.

Remember the days when the only decision you had to make when buying a KitKat was whether to get the two-finger snack or go the whole hog on the four finger option. Now, not only is there chunky, chunky duo and king-sized chunky, Kit Kat has been one of the brands leading the way with alternatives to the traditional recipe.

Latest on the ‘caramel trail’ is Aero, which has topped its famous bubbly chocolate with caramel. This is all part of Nestlé’s plans to make a "huge" investment in Aero this year, kicking off with the re-introduction of Aero Caramel. The company is pouring £5m into a four-month media campaign to celebrate the relaunch of the Caramel variant, which was originally introduced in 2004.

The "irresistibubble" product is getting the full treatment from an integrated advertising campaign including interactive touchscreen quizzes at bus stops to its own Facebook page (we’re still not too sure why you’d befriend a chocolate bar on Facebook). Nestlé, which has also launched an Orange variant of its Aero block, recently reported that sales of Aero blocks soared during 2010, up 70% year on year.

This all follows on the back of perhaps the most bizarre – and to be honest slightly unsettling combination - Marmite’s pre-Christmas launch of a creamy milk chocolate bar with a hint of the famous yeasty spread. Unilever, owner of Marmite marketed the bar as a "devious treat for the in-laws" at Christmas or for those struggling to find a present for a loved one.

We love a bit of chocolate just like the next team, but we also have a nagging concern. If you play around too much with a much-loved institution like the good old Kit Kat or Aero, at what point do you begin to forget why you fell in love with it in the first place? At what point does Kit Kat stop being Kit Kat and start being something else that perhaps you don’t like as much? How far is too far and when do the manufacturers stop staying true to the brand they spent so many years building up?

Now, what would be interesting, perhaps Cadbury’s will really go radical with a re-launched Dairy Milk that has added……chocolate?

A few months ago a BBC documentary – “The Foods That Make Billions; Liquid Gold” – explained how, over the last 40 years the bottled water industry had gone from a business that few took seriously to a global industry worth billions.
One point made by the programme was that, with water natural and sourced at minimal cost, the real value to the industry lay in how the product was marketed and branded. After all, why else would you pay money for something that you can otherwise get for free? In a sense the market now has 20 or 30 varieties of something that actually has no variety.
The latest addition to the market – and with its own branding twist – is Aquapax, from Just Drinking Water, which makes a big play of its packaging in a 500ml carton mostly made of wood, which as they helpfully point out is a natural and renewable resource.
The Engage team road-tested Aquapax and wondered what impact – if any – drinking water from a carton in a sector dominated by bottles there would be. Our findings were split between the practical and the emotional.
The first point to make, of course, is that consumers are already used to getting drinks (albeit not water) from cartons, so there should not be a major educational job to be done in convincing the consumer to embrace a carton.

However, those in the team who drank water particularly when exercising were concerned that shape of the Aquapax was just not as ergonomical to hold as a water bottle, whilst some of the ladies in the team were worried about the durability of the carton versus a bottle if they chose to carry one in their bag.

On the more emotional side, clearly the carton appears more sustainable than a plastic bottle. At present, at least, it is achieving some stand-out for the brand in what is a crowded sector and, for those so-inclined, it enables you, the buyer, the chance (in the short term) to stand out from the crowd.

The bottom line, we guess, is that the brand is asking you, the consumer, to buy into an ethos not just a drink. But, when push comes to shove, and with sales of bottled water falling as more people turn on the tap at home and when eating out, we’re not sure that it’s ever going to be anything more than just another drink on the shelf.

Celebrity chef Aldo Zilli is the latest to put his name to a range of products, in his case a new range of organic baby foods. But just how important is the attachment of a celebrity name and how much does it impress or influence the consumer?

The key always is the synergy between the brand and the personality, particularly if the celebrity name is going to become as intrinsic to the product as Zilli for his baby food, Loyd Grossman for his sauces and, of course, George Foreman and his lean, mean grilling machine. The question is whether the celebrity brings more to the table than the product itself. If the celebrity is a trusted name and is perceived to be involved with the product beyond just lending a name and a face, then this can be a powerful marketing tool. In this sense, people like George Foreman actually become the brand.

Of course, the use of celebrity endorsement is endemic in brand communications. You only need take two minutes to come up with names like Jamie Oliver (Sainsbury’s), Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal (Waitrose) and the loved-up Louise and Jamie Rednapp doing the business for Thomas Cook. Even John Prescott is doing a turn for moneysupermarket.com whilst rock god, Iggy Pop (and his latex double) are fronting a car insurance campaign.

But there’s also a risk. It’s easier to drop your celebrity if they are perceived to have behaved ‘badly’ or not in keeping with the brand values. It is far less easy to drop them if they are in fact, the brand itself.

Research, just published in the US by ATG, suggests the UK like the US could be set to enter an age of ‘social shopping’.

In the US, 29% of respondents aged 18-34 said they had found a product or service through a social network and 37% said it was important or very important that merchants provide them an opportunity to interact through social networks.

The implications of this are that brands who research how their products interact with consumers in a retail environment now need to consider how best to incorporate social networking as a central part of their marketing strategy.

It is important to combine offline and online strategies with consistent messaging but taking advantage of the ability that social media permits to create communities around your products. Use the community to ask for input on product development – and reward consumer participation and interaction by taking on board customer ideas and creating social media-specific promotions.

We all know that social media is perfect for high value or aspirational brands and products, like the iPad, where consumers can meet together and discuss their feelings towards the brand but it can work equally well for lower value products, provided the context of the social media marketing fits with the brand.

One brand that does this particularly well is Lucozade Football, whose Facebook page now has in excess of 55,000 followers. Lucozade had recognized the importance of using social media to fit their brand in as part of their customers’ lifestyles and interests. It’s the perfect example of a brand engaging its consumers for the long term and creating an environment in which to share their mutual pleasure and interest in a subject pertinent to the brand. In this case it’s football, but it could just as easily be technology, music, books, coffee, chocolate or whatever.

Without overt selling, Lucozade has implanted itself in the psyche of its followers and will, almost certainly, be the brand of choice when those followers come to buy. And, crucially, it has all been done by conversation and engagement, not shouting and selling.