Challenge
Our client is a market leader in the fresh milk category in the MEA region.During 2020 they invested very heavily in media- committing to brand building despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Budgets had been increased approximately 58% YoY aimed at driving sales in new occasions and increasing brand relevance.
Despite this, both sales and Brand Equity showed significant declines compared to the prior year.
Understandably this led to much concern from the client, so a complete understanding of brand performance was needed.
Approach
We deployed our Trend Detection and Prediction app to holistically explore performance as part of strategic planning. This allowed Kantar consultants to analyse trends across brand tracking, sales, retail audit and media spends.This identified a few key insights:
ꟷ Stockpiling behaviour due to the pandemic has driven shoppers away from fresh milk to UHT alternatives. We were able to explore the relationship this had no only on sales, but consumer perceptions/consideration.
ꟷ Through more advanced analytics of brand tracking trends, we were able to demonstrate how media investment had actually supported the brand and without it further declines would have been likely.
ꟷ We were also able to predict a bounce back in key sales drivers over the following 3 month otherwise missed in raw tracking data.
Impact
Sales teams were shown evidence of predicted bounce back in key sales drivers to re-energise them to engage their customers.The predicted recovery in sales occurred validating the importance of key sales drivers. This further rallied the organisation to continue to invest behind the brand and secure their budget for 2021.
Looking to the future, further strategic work identified the growing importance of building a sense of distinctiveness and perceived leadership. This led to the development of the new campaign idea which delivered enhanced ROI.