Deciphering the codes
A quick way of getting information or meaningless symbols? Susan Edmunds asks whether shoppers really care about certification marks.
Who’s really behind the seals of approval on our products. Susan Edmunds finds out,
Food blogger Catherine Milford, of Eatscooksreads, is used to seeing stars, ticks and other marks all over the products she buys from the supermarket.
There’s the SPCA tick on eggs, Fairtrade certification on coffee, the Heart Foundation’s tick, the Environmental Choice tick... she doesn’t pay attention to any of them.
‘‘I don’t believe many of them are based on food quality; it’s based on who can pay to have it done. You want to know what’s in your food? Look at the ingredients list.’’
Milford thinks other shoppers do the same.
‘‘I personally don’t think people even see it any more. Coeliacs look at their mark, but others have become way too commonplace and confusing to mean much.
‘‘Double heart tick – what is that even about in supermarkets? There are way too many marks on food – like starving African kids, people become inured after a while.’’
The number of certification programmes operating in this country is growing.
As well as the marks on grocery items, there are also stars and ticks for businesses, related to social issues, such as the Rainbow Tick, for workforce diversity and inclusion, and the new DVFree Tick, which is designed to recognise organisations supporting staff affected by domestic violence.
But, if even food bloggers are despairing at the proliferation of ticks, marks and stars, have we hit tick fatigue?
What’s in it for us?
In most cases, businesses pay for the right to carry particular marks and stars.
But doing so can help them stand out from the competition.
Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand business development manager Pravin Sawmy said about 50 New Zealand businesses had the ‘‘fairtrade’’ mark.
Most were coffee and chocolate products, closely followed by bananas, which were a growing category.
He said the process of getting the mark was rigorous, and looked at where products came from back to the original producers, and what they were being paid for them. Regular audits were also required.
But businesses who went through the process had the benefit of tackling supply-chain risks upfront and Fairtrade would then support their messages about sustainability, in the marketplace.
Fairtrade would help to communicate to consumers the type of impact their fair trade policies had had.
‘‘We do that as a separate entity, which gives credibility for claims in the market.’’
He said the number of fair trade sales increased each year as consumers became more aware of the issues involved.
Westpac was the first business to receive the DVFree Tick, run by domestic violence organisation Shine. It formalised a process that the bank had been working on for the past five years to help staff members affected by domestic violence.
General manager Gina Dellabarca said it was part of the business’ corporate responsibility and a way the bank could lead more awareness of the issue in the business community.
It also has the Rainbow Tick. Westpac has built e-modules to train staff in domestic violence issues and is making those available to other companies that do not have the learning and development capability to build their own resources.
Do consumers care?
Rick Starr, a senior lecturer in management at the University of Auckland business school, said certification marks were useful to consumers who were buying products they knew little about.
It was a quick way to get information about a product, he said.
‘‘Certification is a way of giving some assurance that a product has certain properties,’’ he said.
‘‘With organics, for example, there’s no detectable difference for ordinary consumers, so they have to rely on external certification... it’s a way of helping people simplify something that’s very complex.’’
But he said there was ‘‘huge variation’’ in the reliability of the
‘‘It’s a way of helping people simplify something that’s very complex.’’
Rick Starr
various marks. ‘‘Some processes are extremely rigorous, while there are others that are simply available to purchase. The consumer perceptions don’t line up.’’
Starr said the US’ Good Housekeeping Seal was a good example. ‘‘The way you got that seal of approval was you purchased advertising in Good Housekeeping and sent two cases of products to Good Housekeeping to have them check it out.
‘‘It became a colloquial expression for something that was good and wholesome, when in fact it was a purely commercial certification with no validity whatsoever.’’
He said the range of marks and ticks was likely to grow, as businesses tried to get their messages through an increasingly crowded media environment.
Starr’s own research showed that consumers noticed certification.
He did research on perceptions of pounamu, offering the same carving with the Creative NZ toi iho certification, with a New Zealand made certification and with a label that simply said ‘‘made with care’’.
The research showed that the stronger the certification, the more people valued it, the more they were willing to pay and the more satisfied they were with their purchase.
‘‘It takes an object with no information and surrounds it with a story, making the story more credible. One is an object with no idea of origin, one is made in New Zealand and one is Maori-made in New Zealand, which lends credibility to the idea of the object itself.’’
Starr said social certification, such as the DVFree Tick or Rainbow Tick, would appeal to people who supported certain causes.
‘‘If you look at some of the things, you would expect them to appeal to people who are of that constitution, inclined in that direction.’’
A bank customer, for example, might be slightly encouraged to take their business to Westpac on the basis of the tick.
‘‘All things being equal, it’s a small margin. Typically these are single issue sort of things... saying this is a socially conscious and responsible company.’’
If a competitor in the market was known to be anti-gay rights, for example, a tick that showed another business supported them might sway more customers, Starr said.
Tick fatigue
Associate professor Robert Aitken, of Otago University’s marketing department, said there had been a proliferation of ticks, marks and stars, to their detriment. ‘‘There’s too many – they’re seen by consumers as not very credible.’’
He said he had done research on the barriers to sustainable consumption, asking why shoppers did not buy more sustainable goods.
The work found that shoppers said they did not have enough information and the information they had, such as certification marks and stars, they did not believe.
‘‘That’s part of the overkill,’’ Aitken said. ‘‘They are not very rigorous and ... what they stand for is not clear.’’
Consumers told the researchers they wanted reliable, consistent certification and industry standards – not individual marks that they had to decode and understand how they worked with others.
‘‘They don’t know what they are choosing between.’’
Organisations such as banks deploying social-issues certifications had to be wary of accusations of tokenism, he said.
‘‘They are making more money than they ever were before, really where is the investment? They do seem like small token efforts to ease their conscience.’’
He said philanthropic efforts should be done under the radar and not need public recognition.
‘‘Anything that draws attention to domestic violence is good, but here’s a lot more they could do. It’s a neat marketing ploy.’’
Sawmy said there was not enough regulation of some of the claims being made. In some cases, producers make up their own ticks and stars to put on their packages. ‘‘Consumers go in and believe what they read on the packet.’’
The Commerce Commission had indicated willingness to investigate label claims that were misleading but it was still up to consumers to flag them. ‘‘The Commerce Commission needs to be resourced to check all the things in the market while it’s happening.’’
Kate Daellenbach, undergraduate programme director of marketing at Victoria University, said those running the certification programmes needed to put time into explaining to consumers what was involved in getting the various marks.
‘‘If they don’t mean anything to them, then they’re obviously meaningless.’’
Consumers were sceptical, she said, and would want to be able to see there were health or social benefits involved.
‘‘They will want to know whether it really stands for what they say it stands for. Is a company just putting it on there to get people to buy the product or do they truly believe in it?’’
But businesses that got behind something such as the DVFree Tick could have an impact, she said.
‘‘If they’re standing for something like being against domestic violence or supporting women’s refuge, I think companies have a massive role to play.
‘‘It can’t hurt to get the message out in as many different ways and means as possible. Companies want to operate in a positive society.’’
‘‘Is a company just putting it on there to get people to buy the product or do they truly believe in it?’’ Kate Daellenbach