Why is the Clover milk bottle now blue?

Clover Milk bottles are now blue, because the marketing team behind Clover Milk thinks that you will notice (and obviously buy) Clover Milk more often, if their bottle is a different colour to their competitors on the shelf.

Or, in their own words...

'...to differentiate ourselves, to stand out, to disrupt the fresh milk category and to make fresh milk relevant again.'

[BTW - on a side note and if you're looking for an entertaining read, do yourself a favour and read this full announcement by Clover on their website.] #somebodycallapropercopyeditor

So, officially the bottles are blue to attract your attention at point of purchase, which hopefully also converts into a sale at the expense of the marketshare of competitors.

But in 2020 - is this good enough?

I'm sure that demand in the South African dairy mass-market is largely driven by price, but outside of 'value for money' - what are the other drivers of demand in the milk category?

According to some international research - consumers are looking to:

(1) Get more nutrition from whole foods. Many consumers are convinced that eating more nutritious foods will improve their wellness. They will implement this eating strategy by choosing more whole (natural / organic) foods.

(2) Consumers seek an “extra kick” of health and wellness. This refers to functional food components for mental cognition, satiety, immunity, intestinal health, body composition, etc. These consumers are willing to go to great lengths to get food components into their diet they believe will get them towards their “optimal” health and wellness status.

(3) Substantiated sustainability achievements can drive consumer choices. Millennials brought sustainability of people, planet, process and place into our daily lives. Retailers seeking to capture this consumer segment have responded and the rest of us (or at least many of the rest) are now embracing the ideas of sustainability. This is a global movement. Dairy farmers and dairy processors are doing their part to be good stewards of our global resources. Communicating these efforts (on websites and on-pack) resonates with consumers and positively influences choices. [via]

In addition, I would suggest that people are also looking for packaging alternatives that are less polluting, or are easier to recycle and therefore less harmful to the planet.

This is something that apparently this new bottle definitely doesn't address, according to some experts.

All of these trends, and the innovations that address them, are far more compelling than simply changing the colour of your bottle with the sole intention of standing out on the shelf so that you can sell more product.

A blue milk bottle means absolutely nothing better for the consumer, it only equals financial benefits for the producer.

But clearly boosting sales is the only thing that Clover really cares about, so the choice therefore is left up to you, the consumer, as to whether you support this initiative or not.

I would hazard a guess that people in 2020 are actually looking for new solutions to real and pressing social and environmental problems created by hyper-consumerism, rather than being lured into simply supporting a JSE-listed corporate brand based on an outdated gimmick.

Way better? For Clover maybe, but nobody else.