Magazine: Business Days 2016: Facts and prescriptions (Part 2)

On Thursday manufacturers were in the centre of attention at the Business Days conference. In the first section of the day the Branded Goods Association (BGA) was the host, with general secretary Zoltán Fekete as the moderator. After his brief introduction the first presenter was Dr Ágnes Fábián, vice president of BGA and president of Henkel, who spoke about the importance of healthy products and messages. She revealed that one of Henkel’s fundamental values is sustainability. Nestlé managing director Jean Grünenwald was the next speaker: his presentation focused on Hungarians being one of the most overweight and obese people in Europe – two thirds of Hungarians belong to either one of these two categories. What is more, the trend is even worse among children, because today every fourth child is either obese or overweight.

FrieslandCampina CEO Péter Szautner analysed sustainability from three perspectives: quality food for the world’s population, sustainable production by farmers and guaranteeing that these two things will be available to the next generations too. The company has a global programme that gives professional advice to farmers on how to produce more effectively and more environmentally. Kometa ’99 CEO Giacomo Pedranzini was the next speaker, whose main message was the responsibility of putting food on the table of people that food companies need to be aware of. The CEO asked the question ‘What makes a brand valuable?’ and his answer was: if consumers can identify with it. In this section the last speaker was PepsiCo CEO Attila Berényi, who gave an insight into the world of sports drinks. He introduced the category and analysed the role of the Gatorade brand in the Hungarian market. In his view sports drinks constitute a product category within the health and wellness trend which is available in Hungary too and has a growth potential.

In the second half of the morning the conference continued with one of the conference’s VIP sections: products that can contribute to a healthy diet introduced themselves. Work in this section was moderated by Bernadett Strasser-Kátai, owner and managing director of Real Nature. She introduced her company, which mainly specialises in crop products, talking about the importance of using only GMO-free ingredients. She made it clear that they don’t only manufacture products with a long shelf life but fresh foods and drinks as well. GfK client service director Rita Csillag-Vella was the first speaker in this section. She gave a presentation about what people are willing to do to stay healthy. She spoke in detail about the changes in the consumption of various product categories and revealed that consumers are also price-sensitive when it comes to buying healthy foods.

Gábor Laszlovszky, head of department at the Ministry of Agriculture, Dávid Kétszeri, deputy CEO of GS1 Hungary and Zoltán Krázli, implementation director of GS1 Hungary gave a presentation together. The first speaker was Mr Kétszeri, who compared the food supply chain with the pharmaceutical product supply chain. There are many similarities between them, for instance one of these is that they both must be safe. In order to guarantee safety, global standards need to be used because they can ensure efficiency, transparency and traceability. Mr Laszlovszky introduced Hungary’s National Food Tracking Platform. He revealed that in January 2016 GS1 and the ministry signed an agreement on introducing modern product tracking technologies and tools to food businesses. Mr Krázli added that the pharmaceutical industry is more regulated than the food industry, and he presented the GS1 system of standards.

Answering a question of the moderator, Dr Ádám Panker, an expert of the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition (OGYÉI), told that in the last few years no counterfeit medicine ended up in the official supply chain in Hungary. The last presenter of Thursday morning was Kinga Palotai, national key account manager of Bayer. She revealed that the company’s main objective is to appear in new channels of the FMCG market, such as drugstores and grocery shops, by this improving the distribution and visibility of their products. After this presentation Csaba Burján, managing director or Unilever Food Solutions added that as a responsible multinational company, they are trying to support the government’s efforts for reducing fat, sugar and salt consumption.

A roundtable discussion followed, in which Ildikó Birtalan, the owner of NoCarb spoke about the company’s carbohydrate-free products, which don’t contain gluten, lactose, soy and protein either. VitaFood managing director Krisztina Mészáros mentioned the company’s goal of reducing the environmental impact of their production. Attila Ádám, commercial director of GA FOOD introduced the unblended extra virgin olive oil that they manufacture. Dr János Rákóczi, commercial director of eisberg revealed that not only their branded products are present in shops of all kinds, but it is also eisberg who manufactures private label products for most super- and hypermarkets.

After lunch there was a non-food brands section in the programme. Once again the moderator was BGA general secretary Zoltán Fekete, who first gave the floor to Mónika Barta, client service director of Nielsen. She revealed to participants that every second consumer is actively looking for organic products when shopping. It has a positive effect on 60 percent of shoppers if a product is healthy and 8 from 10 people prefer fresh products made from natural ingredients. She added that sales of healthy or green chemical products have increased by 22 percent a year, while sales of regular chemical products grew by less than 5 percent. Unilever’s customer leader Nelly Kéri-Horváth spoke about the company’s sustainability programme. From the different trends she highlighted that men are more and more willing to pay an extra for quality products. Ottó Németh, general manager of Henkel Beauty Care opined that 80 percent of consumers are still looking for products with a good price-value ratio and don’t care much about environmental considerations or healthy ingredients.

Target Sales Group owner and managing director Balázs Tóth reported that their sales had grown significantly in the previous year, for instance shampoo brand Inacto performed 210 percent better. He agreed that in the case of organic products the price-value ratio is key. Zoltán Venter, managing director of SCA Hygiene Products talked about the company’s goal to manufacture products with a positive health effect in a sustainable way, at the same time reducing the company’s ecological footprint, e.g. in Sweden they already have a factory that is a net oxygen emitter.

Following the coffee break work continued in the communication section – the moderator was communication specialist Szilvia Krizsó. The first presenter was Erik Vágyi, research director of TNS Hoffmann and the topic was: what makes an advertisement efficient? He made it clear that the ultimate goal of an ad is to support the brand efficiently. Each ad should draw the attention of consumers, get its message through and have an influence on the target group. Heineken’s marketing director Gábor Zab used an extraordinary campaign to show how a seemingly contradictory message can also be successful. This summer Heineken entered the world of Formula-1 with the ‘If You Drive, Never Drink’ campaign. With this activity the brewery called attention to responsible alcohol consumption, which perfectly fits into the latest trends: today 75 percent of young people want to party without getting drunk.

Csaba Lukács, managing director of atmedia brought a case study on television commercials. Insurance company Aegon advertised an online service by television commercials, thanks to which the number of website’s visitors increased by 47 percent. The number of transactions also grew significantly and their value doubled. Wim Wouters, creative director of DS Smith analysed the special ability of packaging to convey messages. He told that they develop solutions to partners following the philosophy of ‘More content, less packaging, more messages, fewer blind spots’. It is always a great challenge to communicate the same message to more target groups.

When the day’s work ended in the sections, club members and conference participants could stay on for the Trade Marketing Club meeting. POPAI Hungary Association president Ágnes Csiby and general secretary Ildikó Kátai were the moderators. Zsuzsanna S. Takács, managing director of Strategic Scope Communication Agency was the only presenter, who brought unusual promotions and called attention to the humorous aspect of these – humour can make marketing efforts really successful. The marketing director showed many videos, most of which were made for online campaigns. Her view is that today video content is the best form of marketing. After the club meeting conference participants had a great time at the Gala Dinner, where the Chain Bridge Club Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dr Klára Kovács Csíkné.

Friday was the final day of the Business Days conference and with Szilvia Krizsó’s moderation three speakers shared their knowledge with participants. Biologist and perfumer Zsolt Zólyomi explained that humans can smell earlier before they can see. This means that we gather very deep, emotional information this way, therefore very efficient scent marketing campaigns could be implemented – still, this channel of communication is considered to be rather unusual. Those present in the room also had the chance to test several special perfumes. Psychologist Dr Imre Csernus took the microphone next and ‘attacked’ the audience with his signature provocative questions. He opined that what comes from a person’s true self can’t be concealed by using a perfume. In his view many people are insecure in the business sphere and the problems of these people are typically rooted in the relationship they are living in. One of the biggest problems is that we don’t develop our emotional intelligence. The last speaker of the day was actor Péter Rudolf, who talked about his mission: playing roles in the theatre and on film, in which he can ‘talk about’ what disturbs him in the world and by doing so contribute to changing the world around him. He thinks that he is lucky, because he can turn his intense emotions and energy into something creative. Mr Rudolf added that luck plays a very important role in our life.