Promo Dynamic – Promos up on 2011 as top 10 gets new year shake-up
The Grocer
A month or so ago, retailers were cramming every part of their stores with deals. The festive period had brought with it a promotional frenzy that saw retailers moving fixtures to create new promotional space. In one four-week period over Christmas the number of promotions broke the 10,000 barrier, making the 8,573 in the four weeks to 5 February seem modest by comparison.
But a glance at the year-on-year figures shows activity remains way ahead of the same period 12 months ago, when the total number of deals was 7,782. As The Grocer has reported previously, Tesco’s Big Price Drop – and brand price matching in its various forms – has driven the increase in activity.
The number of own-label deals has fallen 9.5% year-on-year as retailers vie to be seen offering the best value on big-name products, with deals on brands up 14.3% year-on-year. And, after a stable few months in terms of brands running the greatest number of promotions, the past four weeks has brought a shake-up in the suppliers in our top-10 table.
The traditional post-Christmas health drive has brought hikes in activity for WeightWatchers and Müller, with WeightWatchers running almost twice as many deals as this time last year. Dettol has also rocketed up the chart, with four times the offers it ran a year ago as owner Reckitt Benckiser kicked off its Britain’s Greatest Clean Up campaign. Some categories, however, have seen a much lower uplift in activity. While frozen brand Young’s ran a third more deals than last month, this was only 6% up on last year. “Frozen featured space is limited compared with ambient and chilled – retailers can’t just add freezers – so activity on frozen products is limited,” said Assosia MD Kay Staniland. As competition for space across the entire store increases, some retailers are also upping their demands, she adds: “We are aware of some asking for more money for gondola ends.”
In terms of mechanics, the past four weeks has brought a shift in favour of half-price deals, with its share of all promotions up 8.1 percentage points year-on-year to 32.4% as bogof, save and x-for-y were used less frequently.
| 4 weeks to 05/02/2012 | ||||||||
| 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 | 267 | -37.76% | 58.93% | 29.62% | -5.8% | -1.0% |
| 2 | 6 | Kellogg’s | 171 | 20.42% | -1.72% | 36.68% | 4.3% | 3.8% |
| 3 | 5 | Birds Eye | 161 | 6.62% | -20.69% | 41.43% | 0.6% | 2.7% |
| 4 | 2 | McVitie’s | 152 | -2.56% | 23.58% | 42.60% | 4.1% | 4.2% |
| 5 | 3 | Nestle | 139 | 56.18% | -25.27% | 39.70% | 4.2% | -3.0% |
| 6 | 9 | Walkers | 132 | -28.65% | 55.29% | 43.73% | -2.5% | 0.6% |
| 7 | 41 | Weight Watchers | 123 | 223.68% | 89.23% | 32.96% | 1.2% | -8.1% |
| 8 | 16 | Young’s | 88 | 35.38% | 6.02% | 39.47% | -1.6% | 0.1% |
| 9 | 19 | Muller | 85 | 39.34% | 51.79% | 47.14% | 1.7% | -0.5% |
| 10 | 32 | Dettol | 78 | 77.27% | 310.53% | 52.05% | 4.4% | 2.9% |
| Total o/l | 1233 | -11.80% | -9.47% | 30.56% | 2.7% | 1.0% | ||
| Total brands | 7340 | -10.52% | 14.33% | 38.14% | 3.2% | 1.6% | ||
| Total | 8573 | -10.71% | 10.16% | 37.05% | 3.1% | 1.7% |
Published in The Grocer, 11 February 2012