Get set for a good Easter
This Easter Kraft Foods, wholly owned by Mondelez International, will be helping independent retailers to make the most of the sales opportunity that Easter creates by offering advice and marketing support for its top-selling brands, as well as an egg-citing bespoke promotion.
Earlier this year, Kraft Foods launched a package of responsible retailing advice with the sole aim of helping retailers manage seasons more effectively and efficiently. Through Seasons Made Simple the company is urging retailers to plan in advance for each occasion (such as Halloween, Christmas and Easter) and focus on best sellers in order to make the most of seasonal sales.
Cadbury Creme Egg, followed by Cadbury Mini Eggs are the best-selling Easter brands so should be supported by retailers throughout the season, from 1 January. These two power brands act as sign-posts to the Easter fixture for consumers, and 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 1 until Easter Sunday one Gooless Egg will be seeded into a convenience store each day, giving 90 consumers across the country the chance to win in this promotion during the build-up to Easter.
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 to maximise the popularity of the Cadbury Creme Egg brand. This innovative bitesize product of small unique chocolate shaped splats, complete with a Creme Egg goo filling, comes in 157g sharing bags. 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 . Thanks to their sharing size and format, both of these sharing bags were well adopted by consumers as they are perfect for all types of occasions, such as Big Night In or a treat to share with work colleagues.
Stephanie Sarantakos, brand manager for Creme eggs and Mini eggs at Mondelez International, comments, “Cadbury Creme Egg and Cadbury Mini Eggs are the number one and two Easter SKUs respectively. Unique in all areas from brand personality to product format, they are relevant to consumers throughout the entire Easter season. The revival and growth of baking at Easter has also seen these brands become popular as ingredients or decorations for baked goods, which is another reason why retailers should maintain stock levels throughout the season.
“To support our number one selling Cadbury Creme Egg we are delighted to introduce our exclusive consumer promotion – Gooless Egg. Convenience stores are the heartland for this traditional Easter treat so we recognise the importance of supporting convenience retailers to promote this well-loved self-eat SKU to consumers during its key sales period.”
Also new for 2013 is Cadbury branded ‘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.
Unlike other Easter novelties that lend themselves towards on-the-go or impulse consumption, new Egg ‘n’ Spoon is designed for occasions when families sit down and enjoy this seasonal treat together – such as following a meal or during a family night in.
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.
Kraft Foods’ medium eggs deliver against this consumer need, delivering three times more cash sales per single point of distribution than the next nearest competitor brand. 56.4% of consumers claim to buy only Cadbury Easter eggs so to offer consumers the products they are looking for, Kraft Foods would recommend stocking Cadbury Creme egg medium shell egg as it consistently proves to be a top-seller for retailers.
