Case Study
Face-to-Face Consumer Interviews For Havering Council
Shoppers can keep their smiles sparkling for less money after Colgate ramped up promotional savings across the mults.
The UK’s leading toothpaste brand saw its total number of featured space promotions in the major supermarkets rise to 108 from 95 this time last year – a 14% increase. At the same time, average savings deepened by 4.9 percentage points – more than any of the other top 10 promoting brands [Promo Dynamic Brands w/e 20 October 2019].
Month on month, Colgate’s average savings have deepened by just 0.1 percentage point, but it has provided shoppers with considerably more opportunities to save, increasing its number of featured space deals by almost 29% from 84.
With the brand now offering 98.2% of its savings through single price point deals, shoppers are enjoying an average saving of 42.1%, the deepest in the top 10 brands by some considerable distance – and significantly higher than the average saving across the oral care category of 38.7%.
Assosia director Kay Staniland says Colgate is going against the wider oral care market, where the number of promotions is more or less flat year on year. This could be due to the brand targeting the season of charitable giving. “The lead-up to Christmas is often when schools, churches and other organisations begin collecting for charity shoebox appeals, which generally include personal care items,” she says. “Colgate’s increase in promotions may be in response to this in a bid to have their products featured in the donations.”
Staniland also posits a political possibility for the brand’s promotional activity. “With Brexit just around the corner, Colgate may have increased its promotions in the hope of capitalising on the worries that supermarket shelves will be empty come 31 October, to take advantage of shoppers stocking up in advance,” she adds.
Colgate’s activity comes as toothpaste has grown its value in grocery by 2% to £422.6m [Kantar 52 w/e 16 June 2019].
| Ranking | Rank last month | Brand | Number of promotions – Current | Increase / Decrease on previous month | Increase / Decrease on previous year | Average % saving | Average savings % change m-o-m | Average savings % change y-o-y |
| 1 | 1 | Cadbury | 508 | 5.39% | -10.41% | 29.4% | 0.8% | -1.8% |
| 2 | 2 | McVitie’s | 250 | 5.04% | -14.38% | 34.5% | -1.0% | -0.3% |
| 3 | 3 | Birds Eye | 200 | 5.26% | 8.70% | 30.6% | 0.6% | 2.2% |
| 4 | 7 | Coca-Cola | 172 | 40.98% | 52.21% | 23.0% | -4.6% | 3.4% |
| 5 | 5 | Walkers | 160 | 11.11% | 1.27% | 25.8% | -2.8% | -6.4% |
| 6 | 4 | Nestle | 148 | -9.76% | -39.34% | 31.3% | 0.1% | 0.3% |
| 7 | 9 | Fairy | 112 | 24.44% | 20.43% | 30.6% | -1.8% | 1.8% |
| 8 | 10 | Colgate | 108 | 28.57% | 13.68% | 42.1% | 0.1% | 4.9% |
| 9 | 14 | McGuigan Estate | 90 | 36.36% | 9.76% | 16.9% | -7.3% | -0.8% |
| 10 | 8 | Mr Kipling | 88 | -4.35% | -18.52% | 32.1% | -2.7% | -3.0% |
| Total o/l | 1470 | -15.32% | 6.14% | 22.3% | -4.4% | -1.7% | ||
| Total brands | 8348 | 1.11% | -10.05% | 28.4% | -1.6% | -1.2% | ||
| Total | 9818 | -1.74% | -7.95% | 27.5% | -2.0% | -1.4% |
Published in The Grocer, 24 October 2019