Promo Dynamic – No new year resolutions for brands as promos rise again
The Grocer
The marketeers of many of Britain’s biggest food and drink brands apparently didn’t include ‘cutting back on promotional spend’ in their new year resolutions.
While the number of featured space promotions – deals in locations such as gondola ends and pallets – has fallen compared with the pre-Christmas frenzy of four weeks ago, it is still way above the levels recorded this time last year [Assosia 4 w/e 13 January 2013].
Stores have made room for 10,935 deals over the past four weeks – almost 20% more than in the same period 12 months ago. In almost every category – with the exception of general groceries and bakery – the number of deals has risen year-on-year.
The soaring number of promotions has been particularly good news for animal lovers, with offers on pet care products more than doubling from the 62 recorded a year ago to 133.
Fresh produce and meat, fish & poultry have also seen sharp hikes in activity, with the number of deals up 114% and 68.8% respectively. As most of these products are unbranded, this has contributed to the 61.5% overall increase in the total number of own-label promotions across the retailers.
That’s not to say brands have been keeping their heads down, as the total number of branded deals has risen from 7,776 a year ago to 8,718. And, although almost all brands have reined things in month-on-month, only two of the 10 most-promoted brands are running fewer deals than at this time last year.
The sharpest increase was from Coca-Cola, which is running more than three times the number of offers it did 12 months ago – 216 in the past four weeks against the 70 recorded this time last year.
With deals on its Creme eggs appearing long before the tinsel came down, Cadbury increased its number of o ersby 26% year-on-year to 450, while Nestlé rose 20.3% to 225. But Mars more than doubled its number of offers from 84 to 179 and increased the typical saving it offered shoppers by 4.7 percentage points to 36.2%.
| 4 weeks to 21/07/2013 | ||||||||
| Ranking | Rank last month | Brand | Number of promotions | 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 | 354 | 22.92% | -14.29% | 31.55% | 1.0% | 0.7% |
| 2 | 2 | Nestle | 230 | 4.07% | 1.77% | 36.32% | -2.2% | 4.3% |
| 3 | 3 | McVitie’s | 197 | -1.01% | -8.80% | 36.04% | -1.1% | 6.8% |
| 4 | 6 | Coca-Cola | 188 | 36.23% | 27.03% | 27.75% | 0.9% | 0.6% |
| 5 | 4 | Birds Eye | 168 | -12.95% | -8.70% | 37.98% | -2.0% | 0.1% |
| 6 | 8 | Walkers | 158 | 33.90% | 64.58% | 37.30% | 1.9% | -2.3% |
| 7 | 5 | Mars | 138 | -2.13% | -36.70% | 33.58% | -1.4% | -1.1% |
| 8 | 11 | Colgate | 116 | 33.33% | 38.10% | 35.61% | -4.5% | -4.7% |
| 9 | 7 | Kellogg’s | 114 | -5.79% | 3.64% | 34.64% | 0.2% | -3.4% |
| 10 | 9 | Fox’s | 98 | 0.00% | -12.50% | 38.13% | -0.7% | 4.0% |
| 11 | 15 | Nescafe | 90 | 30.43% | 25.00% | 31.03% | 1.3% | 7.1% |
| 12 | 12 | Heinz | 86 | 16.22% | 2.38% | 23.84% | 1.7% | 0.5% |
| 13 | 14 | Napolina | 80 | 12.68% | 33.33% | 40.78% | -3.5% | -3.4% |
| 14 | 26 | Walls | 78 | 73.33% | 25.81% | 34.61% | -4.1% | -3.6% |
| 15 | 16 | Young’s | 67 | 1.52% | 67.50% | 42.37% | -2.2% | -2.1% |
| Total o/l | 1766 | -4.18% | -13.43% | 26.94% | 0.1% | -2.4% | ||
| Total brands | 8693 | 6.45% | 2.27% | 33.26% | -0.3% | -0.1% | ||
| Total | 10459 | 4.50% | -0.77% | 32.19% | -0.1% | -0.4% |
Published in The Grocer, 19 January 2013