Bring! Labs x WEMF: Interview on MACH Strategy

As a neutral and independent industry research institute, WEMF publishes the MACH Strategy intermedia study, among other things. This year, the media category of web offerings is being expanded to include apps for shopping support. We are delighted to be the first participant in this new category in the study with the shopping list app Bring! In an interview with Mike Weber, Director of Marketing and Sales at WEMF, our Head of FMCG Advertising Switzerland, Michel Rahm, explains the background to this decision and the significance for Bring!

Mike Weber: Hello, Michel Rahm. Bring!, the app for shared shopping lists, has been on the market since 2015. How did the idea for an app as a shopping aid come about?

Michel Rahm: Our founders Marco Cerqui and Sandro Strebel came up with the idea for Bring! almost ten years ago when they kept realising 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, to create the best shopping app in the world.

Mike Weber: Those are big ambitions. Another step in this direction is the designation of Bring! as a stand-alone offering in the comprehensive MACH Strategy intermedia study. How did you find out about the study?

Michel Rahm: We had already been discussing participation internally from time to time in the past, so after a successful build-up in recent years, we are now at a point where we can also demonstrate the potential of our advertising platform to the Swiss advertising market via external studies such as the MACH Strategy. Participating in the MACH Strategy enables us to be even more transparent and to show how important the Bring! app is for our 3.2 million users in the entire DACH region when planning their purchases.

Mike Weber: The MACH Strategy is not a classic online study. Why did you decide to take part?

Michel Rahm: Participation gives us the opportunity to draw a comparison with other online offerings and our competitors. As we are mostly competing with traditional genres such as TV, print etc., limiting ourselves to traditional Internet offerings would be too narrow for it to make sense for us within the realities of the market.

Mike Weber: What other advantages do you see for Bring!

Michel Rahm: The importance of purchase preparation 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 the MACH Strategy, we hope to highlight the unique positioning of Bring! and literally get ourselves on the radar of media strategies that we have not yet been on.

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

Michel Rahm: It is important for us to be comparable and transparent with our competitors. Up to now, we have argued strongly on the basis of 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 that our contacts at brand manufacturers are often country managers / CMOs or brand managers who are responsible for sustainable brand communication.

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

Michel Rahm: We are targeting users who are very digitally savvy 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 good coverage of all age groups. This tends to be somewhat younger than for traditional channels with an above-average household income.

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

Michel Rahm: Detailed attitudinal 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 environment. Many things are subordinate to the daily routine of a young family, especially at the beginning, and anything that simplifies life or helps to save time is welcomed into the daily routine with open arms. This obviously includes Bring! as a planning and shopping aid.

Mike Weber: The MACH Strategy can be used to analyse the frequency with which advertising in apps is noticed and attitudes towards advertising, among other things. What is the general attitude of Bring! users towards advertising?

Michel Rahm: What we see in our analyses 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 mindset. Advertising has to 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 news and find my favourite brands. That's exactly where we are with Bring!

‍Mike Weber: How do adverts and product placements actually work in the app?

‍Michel Rahm: It's just as simple as you're used to: many formats comply with the usual standards and can also be played on our platform without any adjustments. However, the context that we offer is important. People who are already busy planning their shopping are much more open to inspiration. And this openness and receptiveness to advertising is the central element why advertising is perceived by us as suitable content. In this way, we achieve a capitalisation of brand purchases and enable existing customer relationships to be cultivated.

Mike Weber: In addition to the individualisation of the offer, personalised offer communication is a major topic in retail marketing. What does Bring! offer here?

Michel Rahm: We can say that we currently offer what is probably the smartest solution on the market in the area of personalised offer communication. With our ‘Bring! Offers’, we offer a format that personalises individual offers based on the shopping list and shopping habits of the respective user. We take over the time-consuming task of finding the right offers for the consumer from the weekly brochures and compile them clearly at a glance. A very powerful and deep integration into our core use case is therefore very popular with Bring! users as well as with a large number of the country's biggest retailers.

Mike Weber: Finally: What three top trends in current shopping and consumer behaviour do you observe?

Michel Rahm:

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

Mike Weber: Thank you very much for these interesting insights.

About Michel Rahm

Michel Rahm heads 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 has many years of experience in the Swiss advertising market and sales. He regularly shares his expertise as a speaker at specialist conferences.

At the beginning of his career, Michel Rahm held various positions in sales and market research at Ringier and the TX Group. He then spent five years at Unilever as Key Account Manager, where he was responsible for Unilever's listing at Aldi and Lidl as part of the two retailers' market entry in Switzerland. Most recently, the 46-year-old was Client Business Partner at the market research institute GFK Switzerland, where he worked closely with leading companies from the Swiss retail trade and consumer goods industry.