I saw an ad for the Product of the Year the other day. Impressive, until I saw another, then another…I think I’ve seen at least 5 different products claiming to be product of the year now. They all use the same 10,049 person survey as their “evidence” for the “award”!
Here’s how it works.
Anyone launching an FMCG product in the last 18 months can enter their product and a “jury” (not sure how this is composed) then decides what will go through to the survey to get consumer “votes” on.
If your product is honoured to be chosen then you go through to the research phase (at a cost of £4,750 which goes to the Product of the Year company so I suspect they are rather incentivised to let your product through if you apply..).
Products are put in categories rather than all competing against eachother…this seems reasonable as it’s a bit pointless comparing razors and shampoo. However it does devalue the concept of the Product of the Year (which implies a certain singularity rather at odds with the profusion of brands claiming to be THE product of the year).
If you do get honoured to be chosen as Product of the Year (in the large scale consumer survey) then it will cost you a further £12,000 or so…It can be fiercely competitive with as many as 6 products competing in each category..(at a maximum). On the other hand the company behind ProductOfTheYear guarantee that there will be at least two products per category so it’s hardly a walkover for anyone…!
Taylor Nelson appear heavily involved in Product of the Year though it’s not entirely clear what company is running it from the website…
All in all, it seems a pretty dodgy scheme really, with the objective to boost sales of FMCG brands (by up to 10% apparently according to research on www.productoftheyear.com…and to boost the coffers of the awards company (who also seem to charge a licensing fee of 10% as well)..but I really can’t see consumers falling for this when so many different brands claim to be Product of the Year…it’s like that seen in Spartacus when hundreds of different slaves claim to be Spartacus and the Romans don’t know who to crucify..
Can’t see the respective brands getting crucified for this but can’t see much long term gain..
That said it’s nice to see research driven advertising…perhaps other more considered approaches could work as well..
