Easter is the undoubted sales highlight of spring, but Mother’s Day and Valentines also contribute to create a triumvirate of events that, with careful planning, could see your 2013 get off the start you’re hoping for.
by Kevin Scott
Easter has always been something of a mystery for convenience stores – differing dates and ludicrous supermarket promotions have conspired to leave local retailers a little underwhelmed by Easter. Recently, the upsurge in demand for impulse singles has helped c-stores reclaim a little of that Easter market. There still needs to be careful management of course and large shell eggs around the £10 mark are not the sort of items you want unopened cases of in the stockroom after Easter weekend.
As ever, the major confectionery manufacturers have been busy ensuring that they all have a raft of competing products that will carry them through spring – and all three of major events that occur over the time between Valentine’s Day on 14th February to Easter, which this year falls on 31st March.
Bep Dhaliwal, Trade Communications Manager, Mars Chocolate, says: “Spring and Easter offer retailers a number of opportunities to capitalise on confectionery trends and consumer spending habits. Easter will see families and friends getting together over the seasonal period and shoppers will be looking for the ideal products to give and to share.”
It’s a view backed by her counterpart at Nestlé UK, Graham Walker, who says: “Easter is a key season for confectionery. It accounts for over 30% of seasonal value sales and, what’s more, it’s growing.”
Ferrero UK Customer Development Director, Levi Boorer adds: “Last year, we performed ahead of the category during the Spring season and Boxed Confectionery presents a big opportunity for independent retailers as a key category value driver during the Spring period. We are currently one of just two manufacturers driving significant growth in this category and well placed to help our retailer partners grow their Spring sales with our bestselling core range and sensational new seasonal products.”
Immediate Consumption
It’s maybe going a bit far to call Immediate Consumption products the saviour of Easter in convenience, but with sales up a huge 60% (from a decent base too, thanks mainly to Cadbury’s Creme Egg), it’s fair to say that small stores are in a better position to make something from the occasions.
From Mars, this year sees the return of Galaxy Bubbles Filled Egg, a filled egg with a bubbly centre, building on the success of Galaxy Bubbles in Bar format which hit shelves in February 2010. Joining it will be Galaxy Caramel Filled Egg, and Galaxy Caramel Mini Eggs. Mars predicts that sharing will make its mark on Easter this year again, and urges retailers to stock up on Galaxy Caramel Mini Eggs. Each pack contains eight individually wrapped eggs with a chocolate caramel centre, ideal for sharing with friends and family.
Unsurprisingly, Cadbury Creme Egg, followed by Cadbury Mini Eggs are the best-selling Easter brands so should be supported by retailers throughout the season. Between them make up 35% of all Easter SKU sales. These are the two brands that Kraft Foods recommends all independent retailers stock for the entire Easter period, even if they don’t have space to carry an extensive seasonal range.
This year Kraft Foods is running a consumer promotion that is exclusive to the convenience channel – ‘Gooless Eggs’. The promotion will encourage consumers to hunt for a Cadbury Creme Egg without its trademark ‘goo’ for their chance to win cash prizes. ‘Gooless’ Cadbury Creme Eggs will look and feel like normal Cadbury Creme Eggs but these unique unfilled eggs will entitle consumers to prizes of up to £1,000. For the 90 days from January 1st until Easter Sunday one Gooless Egg will be seeded into a convenience store each day, giving 90 consumer’s prizes.
This convenience exclusive promotion will be marketed extensively to consumers before and during the promotional period through POS kits in participating stores, including dump bins, counter barrels, wobblers, shelf strips and posters. All POS materials will carry the Twitter hashtag #nogoo to encourage consumers to talk about the activity in social media and spread the excitement.
Last Easter, Kraft Foods launched Cadbury Creme Egg Splats in 157g sharing bags to maximise the popularity of the Cadbury Creme Egg brand. The other bitesize launch from Cadbury last Easter – Cadbury Mini Eggs 195g sharing bag – was also a huge success, becoming the number one NPD launch for Easter 2012. In total, the Cadbury Easter bitesize launch contributed £5.4m in value sales.
Novelty
Novelty items complement shell eggs and have grown in popularity and stature over recent years with manufacturers harnessing well-known brands through product launches of a novelty nature. From Cadbury this year comes ‘Egg ‘n’ Spoon’. This sharing novelty comes in packs of four and features individually wrapped milk chocolate egg shells filled with a light fluffy mousse. This new SKU is packaged in traditional egg cartons and the product includes spoons to facilitate what is expected to become a new seasonal eating ritual. Each egg is to be peeled from its foil wrapper and the top bitten off before scooping the mousse out with one of the spoons provided.
One key product for Mars has been the Malteaster Bunny – a brand that is now worth over £10m. For the fifth consecutive year, the Bunny will be bouncing onto the shelf for Easter. It will also be advertised on TV for twice as long as last year – from four to eight weeks.
Last year saw the launch of Mini Bunnies and they’ll be back to help retailers take advantage of the sharing occasion.
Nestlé Confectionery is also getting involved in the bunny market, with the launch of a new chocolate character for 2013 – the Milkybar Bunny (rrp 65p).
Smarties Little Choc Chick (rrp 65p) returns following a highly successful launch in 2012. 50% of shoppers who bought the product were new to Seasonal Impulse, meaning on its own it brought an additional 230,000 households into the category.
Rounding off Nestle’s trio of animal products, Aero Milk Chocolate Lamb (rrp 65p) is back, in both mint and orange flavours.
Shell Eggs
Although self-eat and sharing products offer the biggest sales opportunities for convenience retailers at Easter, shell eggs also have their role to play for stores that have sufficient space. Immediately before Easter is the convenience store’s opportunity to differentiate itself from large grocery outlets because it is a local and convenient place for consumers to buy last minute gifts for unexpected visitors or friends and family. In order to ensure that shell eggs work for them, retailers must focus on best-selling brands to ensure they sell well and aren’t left as residual stock after the season.
Mars’ biggest brands will also be returning in egg format as M&M’s, Mars and Maltesers will once again be available. The Malteaster Bunny also makes a return as a Luxury Egg, containing a luxury hollow milk chocolate egg and four Malteaster Bunnies, benefiting from the popular TV campaign to drive further trial and awareness.
Another luxury offering comes from Ferrero. Building on the success of the 275g luxury Rocher Easter Egg launched in 2011 (rrp £10.99), Ferrero has launched a medium luxury egg to compliment the range. The smaller size means consumers can indulge in the same luxurious taste and look for less. The attractive box, contains a 100g chocolate shell with hazelnut pieces and four Ferrero Rocher, and has an rrp of £5.99.
Kraft Foods will also be pushing its medium eggs in convenience and Mondelez International says 56.4% of consumers claim to buy only Cadbury Easter eggs so is urging retailers to stock Cadbury Creme egg medium shell egg, as it consistently proves to be a top-seller for retailers.
Adult eggs are the main gift bought for adults during Easter and are also growing in importance in the Impulse channel, now accounting for 13% of total Easter confectionery sales up from 11% in 2010. On average shoppers are purchasing three adult egg packs (an increase of 26%) and spending £11.21 over the season, and, whilst adults may receive fewer eggs than children, the spend per egg is considerably higher as they’re chosen to be more special/individual gifts.
The late season is critical for sales of adult eggs as this is when 81% of shoppers buy them. For 2013, Nestlé Confectionery will continue to leverage the broad appeal to its breadth of brands, meaning there is something for every age. From its After Eight Insider Egg and Quality Street Insider Egg, to new products including Rowntree’s Randoms Insider Egg (rrp £5.41) and Aero Bubbles Peppermint Insider egg (rrp £5.41), the company has tried to aim a product at every age group. In additional it will tap into the trend towards nostalgia with the likes of the Yorkie Digger egg (rrp £5.61). Retro eggs from Lion Bar, Kit Kat Chunky and Munchies will also feature in the range.
There will also be a wide range of Kids Added Value Eggs – which saw an 18% increase last year. Farmyard eggs from Smarties and Milkybar are the company’s star. With an rrp of £4.99 the Smarties Farmyard contains a hollow milk chocolate egg and a Smarties Chicken and Egg. The Milkybar Farmyard will feature a hollow white chocolate egg complete with a Milkybar Cow. The Hen House and Milky Barn shaped box are ideal options for children over Easter.
