«Taking part in MACH Strategy enables us to be even more transparent»

Hello Michel Rahm. Bring!, the app for shared shopping lists, has been on the market since 2015. How did the idea for such a shopping app come about?

Our founders Marco Cerqui and Sandro Strebel had the idea for Bring! almost ten years ago when they started to realize how often they had forgotten their handwritten shopping lists on the fridge at home. They needed a smart solution and so they decided to create something of their own. Something that could help many people in their everyday lives: namely, the best shopping app in the world.

These are ambitious goals. Another step in this direction is the inclusion of Bring! as an individual offer in the comprehensive MACH Strategy intermedia study. How did you find out about the study?

Participating in the study had already been discussed within our company many times in the past, so after successfully expanding in recent years, we are now at a point where we can show the Swiss advertising market the potential of our advertising platform also via external studies such as MACH Strategy. Participating in MACH Strategy allows us to be even more transparent and to be able to show how important the Bring! app is for our 3.2 million users in the entire DACH region when planning their purchases.

MACH Strategy is not a traditional online study. Why did you decide to take part?

By participating in the study, we have the opportunity to draw a comparison with other online offers and our competitors. As we mostly compete with traditional genres such as TV, print, etc., limiting ourselves to traditional internet offers would be too narrow a focus to make sense for us in the real market.

What other advantages do you see for Bring!

The importance of preparing for a purchase in the consumer journey is usually underestimated in media planning - but quite wrongly so. In Switzerland, over 80% of all consumers plan their purchases in advance. The trend is clearly rising, as our Bring! Shopper Guide 2024 shows. With our presence in MACH Strategy, we hope to highlight the unique positioning of Bring! and literally put ourselves on the radar of media strategies that we have not yet been on.

Who are the people who create these media strategies? Who do you hope to reach even better by participating in the study?

It is important for us to be comparable and transparent with our competitors. Up to now, we have relied heavily on internal data and facts. By participating in a neutral survey, we hope to achieve comparability and automatic presence in all media planning. In concrete terms, this means that we want to continue to reach the CMOs at retailers and at brand manufacturers our contacts are often country managers / CMOs or brand managers who are responsible for sustainable brand communication.

Let's talk about the user base of the Bring! app: What characterizes the typical user according to your existing app data?

We are aimed at users who are highly digitally active and are used to using their smartphone as a cockpit for their daily lives. The app is particularly popular in multi-person households. We have broad coverage across all age groups. This tends to be somewhat younger than for traditional channels and with an above-average household income.

And what additional information can MACH Strategy provide you with in relation to your user base?

Detailed attitude and consumer characteristics that we were previously unable to derive from pure app data, as we do not collect personal data in-app. We were also pleased to see that we have very high affinity values, particularly among young families, even though this was not entirely new to us. This important target group for us also serves as a multiplier in many areas, often sharing their positive product experiences in their own social circles. There are many things that are part of a young family's daily activities, especially at the beginning, and anything that makes life easier or helps to save time is welcomed into the daily routine with open arms. This obviously includes Bring! as a planning and shopping aid.

One of the things that can be analyzed in MACH Strategy is the frequency of advertising in apps and attitudes towards advertising. What is the general attitude of Bring! users towards advertising?

What we see in our evaluations is that our users move through life digitally and are difficult to reach via traditional advertising media. The attitude towards advertising is also rooted in this on-demand thinking. Advertising must match the current need. When I stream TV, I want to watch TV, but when I plan my shopping, I want to find inspiration, discover new products, and find my favorite brands. That's exactly where we are with Bring!.

How does the use of advertising and product placements in the app actually work?

It’s just as easy as you are used to: many formats are in line with common standards and can also be used by us without the need for adjustments. However, the context that we offer is what is important. People who are already busy with their grocery planning are much more open to inspiration. And this openness and receptiveness to advertising is the main reason why advertising on our site is perceived as suitable content. In this way, we achieve habitual brand purchasing behavior and enable the cultivation of existing customer relationships.

In addition to the individualization of an offer, personalized offer communication is a major topic in retail marketing. What does Bring! do here?

We can say that we currently offer what is probably the smartest solution on the market in the area of personalized offer communication. With our “Bring! Offers”, we provide a format that points out individual offers based on the shopping list and shopping habits of the respective user. We handle the time-consuming task of finding the right offers for the consumer from weekly brochures and compile them into a clear overview. A very powerful and deep integration of our core use case is therefore very popular with Bring! users as well as with many of the country's largest retailers.

And finally: What three top trends in current shopping and consumer behavior are you noticing?

• Sustainability, organic and conscious consumption. For many consumers, supporting the local economy is important when deciding to buy regional products.
• The classic weekly shopping is increasingly being replaced by several smaller shopping trips.
• Grocery planning is becoming increasingly important and digital - especially in times of rising prices, grocery planning leads to lower spending. Consumers are also increasingly informing themselves via digital advertising brochures.

Thank you for this interesting discussion.

About the person

Michel Rahm has headed the Swiss FMCG advertising business of Bring! Labs AG since October 2023 and, together with his team, is responsible for further expanding the marketing of the two shopping companion apps Bring! and Profital. Born in Zurich, he is an expert in the consumer goods industry and regularly shares his specialist knowledge as a speaker at specialist conferences.