Spar’s first-ever summer Wine Festival promotional campaign, which took place from 22 April to 2 June this year, helped to boost total wine sales over the period by 8.3%.
Of particular success, said Spar, during the campaign were South Africa wines, which were up 237% over the same period. Wines from France were 35% ahead of the category and SPAR own-brand wines grew by 17.2%.
Spar wine buying director Chris Lewis said: “We took special care to choose wine ranges that would fit in with consumer trends and activities – for example, we chose South African wines to tie in with World Cup promotional material, and wines from France because it gave us a balance of styles, and depth of choice.”
To support the wines, there was a promotional offer of 25% off 35 selected French and South African wines, including Alexander Fontein Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc and Namaqua Elephant River wines; and nine wines were bought in especially for the Festival period.
“The festival was introduced this year with the aim of increasing Spar’s wine market share from 1.6% to 2.4%, encouraging consumers into trying Spar wines and increasing awareness of our fantastic range of wines to existing and potential new shoppers,” said Lewis.
“It was also a great opportunity to establish Spar’s reputation as a retailer that sells excellent quality wines at good value, helping to improve consumer price and quality perceptions of the Spar wine range,” he added.
“We are delighted with the success of the festival, and following this achievement, we plan to roll this out again at a similar time next year,” said Lewis.
The Wine Festival was rolled out across Spar’s 2,100 licensed stores and had extensive marketing support including consumer press advertising, POS material, in-store tastings and PR.
Source: Spar
