Case Study
Face-to-Face Consumer Interviews For Havering Council
Discounters have already started flogging some of their Olympic merchandise, but mascots Wenlock and Mandeville aren’t yet filling up the gondola ends of Britain’s supermarkets. And neither are BBQs and paddling pools.
In fact, when it comes to featured space this month, it’s as if the summer hasn’t happened yet, with the usual suspects in the 10 most-promoted brands.
True, Cadbury and Coca-Cola have been active on the back of their Olympic sponsorship deals in the four weeks ending 5 August, with both running more promotions than in the preceding four-week period. The increase is even more marked year-on-year, with Cadbury running 107 more deals than in July 2011, and Coca-Cola 53 more. But Mars has also been more active although Nestlé is running slightly fewer deals m-o-m.
Overall, the number of featured space promotions has risen from 8,582 a year ago to 8,899 this year. It seems the poor weather is keeping bulky non-food items traditionally promoted at this time of year off fixtures.
“Only a small amount of space is being allocated to non-food summer goods such as barbecues and outside toys as retailers cannot risk pushing those lines during bad weather,” said Kay Staniland, MD of retail analyst Assosia.
Even discounted Olympic goods were not given a lot of space, though this might not be a national trend, she added. One thing that is, however, is an increase in the depth of savings offered by featured space deals.
The typical saving on an own-label product has risen from 24.1% a year ago to30.8%, not least because of a shift towards half-price deals.
This has been marked in fresh produce, where half-price deals have risen four fold, from 44 a year ago to 166. It’s a development seen across the market, with half-price promotions accounting for 20.7% of all featured space deals in the past four weeks compared with 12.3% a year ago. Over the same period, x-for-y deals have fallen from 32.3% of deals to 25.6%.
| 4 weeks to 05/08/2012 | ||||||||
| Ranking | Rank last month | Brand | Current 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 | 349 | 11.15% | 44.21% | 37.78% | 0.5% | 6.5% |
| 2 | 2 | Nestle | 195 | -4.88% | -29.35% | 35.17% | 2.0% | 0.9% |
| 3 | 4 | McVitie’s | 182 | 23.81% | 7.06% | 37.12% | -1.4% | -1.7% |
| 4 | 3 | Mars | 162 | -12.90% | 78.02% | 36.44% | -4.4% | 15.4% |
| 5 | 6 | Coca-Cola | 156 | 10.64% | 51.46% | 31.19% | -2.1% | 3.6% |
| 6 | 7 | Birds Eye | 135 | 3.05% | -20.12% | 39.23% | 5.7% | 9.1% |
| 7 | 5 | Kellogg’s | 120 | -17.24% | -1.64% | 34.00% | -4.4% | 1.5% |
| 8 | 8 | Walkers | 99 | 3.13% | -15.38% | 42.49% | -0.6% | 5.1% |
| 9 | 9 | Heinz | 95 | 23.38% | 61.02% | 21.17% | 0.6% | -8.5% |
| 10 | 10 | Mr Kipling | 79 | 6.76% | 2.60% | 22.96% | 2.0% | -3.1% |
| Total o/l | 1438 | 13.32% | 0.21% | 30.77% | 0.0% | 6.7% | ||
| Total brands | 7461 | -0.52% | 4.39% | 34.56% | -0.1% | 1.9% | ||
| Total | 8899 | 1.48% | 3.69% | 34.78% | 0.1% | 3.6% |
Published in The Grocer, 11 August 2012