Green Isle Foods and Tesco have been named as the winners of the 2013 ECR CatMan & Shopper Marketing Award, for an initiative to drive customers back to the frozen food category at Tesco Naas.
The in-store initiative, which Tesco Ireland Buying Manager Alison O'Doherty described as a "long term solution, rather than a short-term fix, to help customers have a more enjoyable shopping experience", led to a 3% increase in sales value in the category, and a 4% increase in spend per customer, compared to control stores.
In addition, units per customer were up 2%, and visits per customer were up 4% (vs. control). Among the responses garnered from shoppers was that the in-store investment "encouraged them to spend more time" in the frozen section, and that there was "more choice and a bigger range of products".
The initiative was one of four in the running for the ECR CatMan Award, which was presented as part of the ECR Ireland CatMan & Shopper Marketing Conference, held last week in CityWest Hotel.
Other initiatives included Britvic's work on raising the profile of the Squashes & Cordials category, a joint effort between BWG Foods and PepsiCo Ireland on building impulse Crisps & Snacks sales, and a macro space planning initiative undertaken by Topaz Energy.
Also at the event, ECR Ireland unveiled the results of a Shopper Marketing & Category Management Benchmark Survey, which outlined that 43% of businesses surveyed have less than two members of staff devoted to category management. However, 51% of respondents agreed with the statement that 'Shopper marketing is a priority in our company'.
68% of respondents said that 'poor/inconsistent retailer implementation' was one of the biggest barriers to category management development in their organisation.
© 2013 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
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