From the Heart to the Shopping Cart: Family, Memories, Emotions and... Product Data?!

Phrases such as “Data is the new gold” or “Data maintenance has rarely been as important as it is today” are currently shaping the general discourse in many companies. Product data is becoming more relevant because it is used as the basis for product descriptions and marketing campaigns. But aren't we forgetting an important aspect here? Marcus Person from hmmh AG took us on a very special journey: Meet Karlotta, Gerd and Grandma Hedi and find out why a mere glance at product data and its maintenance is not enough.

This beginning made me chuckle: Our visitors say that priint:day is the industry get-together for the PIM market and for everyone involved in product communication. Then we, as organizers, put someone on the priint:day stage who says that he has little idea about one of the main topics. Admittedly, we knew how Marcus would start his presentation and that he is not your typical product data expert. All the more reason to appreciate him as an expert who approaches the topic from a different angle.

Should (product) data really be the main focus?

So how did Marcus go about it? He started with a completely average product: 400 billion euros for product implementation, by 2029 it will be 580 billion euros, and the per capita turnover worldwide is 52 euros, with each of us consuming an average of 46 kilos – that's right, the answer is rice.

Rice is a product that almost everyone knows, but by itself it is relatively unspectacular. Without the proper seasoning, rice has hardly any flavor of its own. It feeds many people, it comes in a wide variety of product packaging, some more and some less appealing, but even in the supermarket, hardly anyone will walk past the shelf and immediately think, “Oh, now I really feel like having rice.”

Conclusion: Rice is much more than just a product, but it is still not a product that you would buy enthusiastically like chocolate, for example. However, it is a product that often ends up in the shopping cart.

Let's focus on the buyers and the different consumers

We meet Marcus and his family: Karlotta is Marcus's daughter, 13 years old, sporty and maybe a bit chaotic at times. If you were to ask her about her favorite food, it would probably be pizza. So, what is her relationship to rice?

If you know Karlotta like Marcus does, one dish comes to mind: A typical poke bowl. Karlotta may not be an enthusiastic cook, but she has no problem standing in the kitchen, cutting a wide variety of foods and arranging them in an appetizing way.

Rice is something she likes, and through the poke bowl she has a relationship with rice. Still, she would hardly come up with the idea of saying, “We definitely have to eat rice today!” just by looking at a package of rice.

Let's move on to the next generation: Gerd. He is around 80 years old. Marcus' father lives in Sweden and has probably never really had an appetite for rice. His favorite food is potatoes. When Marcus thinks of his father and rice, an image comes to mind: Gerd and his wife Inge sitting in a bodega somewhere in Spain eating a delicious paella or risotto.

The last person in the family we met was Grandma Hedi. She grew up in Silesia, came to the Weser Bergland in Germany shortly after the war and is Marcus's grandmother. The memory of Grandma Hedi and rice is also a simple one: Marcus and his brother are sitting on the corner bench in the kitchen, the room smells pleasantly of cinnamon and brown butter, and warm rice pudding is on the table.

What do we learn from Karlotta, Gerd and Grandma Hedi? Rice is not boring at all! It’s much more than just a simple product on the supermarket shelf. Rice is symbolic of the stories and memories we associate with it – the context in which we experience rice.

Interim conclusion: The product's benefits are not determined by the product data

Rice is much more than its product characteristics, such as whether it is grainy or precooked. Its product packaging reflects this information, but it is not the information that someone needs to make a purchase decision. It is the stories and the context in which we place the product, where we come together and eat. It is precisely these associations that many companies do not tell in the product texts and on the packaging. Rather, we find a product text there that reflects all the characteristics of the data and that can be used as often as possible for different touchpoints in the customer journey.

What does this mean for the customer journey?

It all comes down to where we are in the customer journey and what information we need. When do we buy a product based on product data and find ourselves at the information level, and when are we first interested in a product because we have been inspired and need data that evokes associations? Here, too, we were able to accompany Karlotta, Gerd and Grandma Hedi for a while:

Let's join Karlotta on her journey. She often buys products based on inspiration. She saw a well-known drinking cup on social media and maybe again posted by an influencer. Her friends already have the cup and Karlotta develops the desire to have one too. She goes to a store and physically picks up the cup but then finds out that it's far too expensive for her pocket money.

Nevertheless, Karlotta continues to talk about it, exchanging ideas with friends and perhaps also discussing which color, shape or accessory is the coolest. In the end, the product is so long and consistently in the inspiration phase that Karlotta wants it as a gift. The actual use of the product, how to operate it or how it works, are not relevant for Karlotta. She never got to the point of arriving at the stage of a classic information search.

Gerd's customer journey is different. He saw an ad for a well-known vacuum cleaner. He then went to the manufacturer's website to find out what the product costs. Since it was too expensive for him, he went to various marketplaces and looked at replacement products, comparing them to see if there were cheaper alternatives with perhaps better reviews. In the end, he downloaded a PDF with all the information about the perfect product, but then probably never bought it.

Grandma Hedi has yet another customer journey. Her friend wrote her a message and recommended a product for gardening because Grandma Hedi enjoys gardening, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for her physically. The recommendation included where the nearest store is that stocks the product so that Grandma Hedi can see and touch it physically in person. The purchase decision has not yet been made because she has a similar gardening tool from the past and the classic sentence, “This is still good.” came to mind. A few weeks later, Grandma Hedi saw another ad for the same product in the catalog, which had additional information. She missed not being able to pursue her hobby of gardening anymore and decided to buy it to help her get back to the thing she liked doing. She had been at the information stage the whole time and only made a purchase when she needed to.

If we compare these customer journeys, one thing becomes clear: We all differ in how we make a purchase decision. One person makes a purchase decision based on pure information, like Grandma Hedi. The other person only does so for inspiration, as we saw with Karlotta. But Gerd falls somewhere in between.

What does this have to do with product management?

The product description is precisely in this intermediate area between pure information and inspiration. This means that product management must find a product description for all cases in order to attract Karlotta, Gerd and Grandma Hedi as buyers. In addition, the description must work for the different touchpoints in the customer journey of all three people. Marcus illustrated this in his presentation and showed that personalization is essential. In further research, however, he found that various studies show that many manufacturers and retailers have the data on where and when their customers are in the customer journey, but personalization remains an unused tool. There is a product description, which is then often optimized only for the web shop.

But it's about all touchpoints. Marcus's appeal is clear: Get to know the relationships! We can tell stories at all touchpoints: What was it like back then at the bodega of Gerd or in the kitchen of Grandma Hedi? Only then can we manage to build a real relationship, and that's exactly where product management comes in. Being able to experience this journey at priint:day, Marcus' presentation really stuck with me.