Cadbury reinforces brands for Spring season

Monday, 24 November 2008

Cadbury will be re-enforcing its role as the first choice confectionery brand during the Spring season by focusing on ‘bringing new life to the pleasure of Spring'.

This year the core Cadbury range will enhance the link between Cadbury and the Spring occasion through a combination of on-pack design, advertising and compelling new products.

Cadbury will also make significant packaging reductions across the core range for Easter 2009, in accordance with its Purple goes Green initiative.

Commitment to reducing packaging

Cadbury will continue to reduce its packaging for boxed eggs in 2009, working with suppliers such as WRAP to deliver a 25% reduction in packaging across Medium shell eggs, and taking the lead with Large shell eggs, with an average 30% reduction on packaging.

Kate Harding, Trade Communications Manager at Cadbury, comments: "We are fully committed to reducing our impact on the environment by delivering our Purple Goes Green objectives. We were delighted to be recognised for this with the Best Green Packaging Award for our unboxed eggs at this year's Green Awards.

"Medium and Large shell eggs are real volume drivers with Cadbury having a 36% share of the Shell eggs category, so reducing the packaging for these products can have a genuine impact."

Shell

This Easter, Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel shell egg will feature a totally new design to give it a more Spring like feel, to allow consumers to really take notice of, and engage with the season. The design will be more feminine, as it remains a brand popular with females, and the Medium egg will now feature two Cadbury Caramel filled eggs, in the place of the twin chocolate bars that previously featured.

Cadbury will also be launching a fresh new look for the Cadbury Dairy Milk shell egg, which will align with the messaging for the brand about Cadbury's use of fresh milk that is so important to consumers.

Delivering pleasure to communities

Easter is seen by many as an occasion to enjoy quality time with their family and in 2008, Cadbury introduced Easter Egg Trails in partnership with the National Trust to offer a fun, outdoor day out for families nationwide.

The events are also a great way of increasing awareness of Cadbury at Easter, helping to drive sales for retailers. For 2008, 12 million adults were aware of the Easter Egg Trails and 599,144 people attended despite the poor weather.

For 2009, Cadbury will once again be working with the National Trust to run the Easter Egg Trails across the UK. Consumers will be made aware of the events through details of the Trails featuring on around 30 million packs, as well as an up-weighted PR campaign.

New for this year, visitors to the event will be given the chance to invent their own design for an Egghead and the winner's creation will become part of the Egghead range during Easter 2010.

Filled and Mini

Cadbury has the largest share of the Filled and Mini category, including Cadbury Creme Egg and Mini Eggs, at 71%. Cadbury Creme Egg is an extremely important SKU as it is the number one brand at Easter and marks the start of the season by helping to draw consumers back to chocolate confectionery after the festive season.

For Easter 2009, there will be a brand new 20 second advert for the Creme Egg, ‘Here Today, Goo Tomorrow' campaign at the beginning and end of the season, this will be supported by 10 second ads and PR throughout the Easter period.

Kate Harding comments: "For independent retailers, getting Creme Egg right is absolutely essential. With TV advertising on air from January 1st, they should make sure that there is good availability and visability of Creme Egg within a high footfall area of their store right from the beginning of the year."

Cadbury Caramel Egg is the number two brand within the filled egg category. For Easter 2009, Cadbury is aiming to drive distribution of the brand even further. Cadbury Caramel Egg delivers a distinctly different taste experience to Cadbury Creme Egg and it is important for retailers to offer a range of filled eggs in order to attract incremental buyers in store.

Mini Eggs are the number two overall brand at Easter making it the number one mini egg brand and like Cadbury Creme Egg, the brand acts as a beacon that signposts the start of the spring season.

A huge 94% of consumers are aware of Mini Eggs, so it is vital that retailers maximise on this by keeping stock levels high throughout the spring season. As with Cadbury Caramel Egg, Mini Eggs bring incremental buyers into the Cadbury range.

Novelties

The Cadbury Chick is a hollow Cadbury Dairy Milk chick, filled with Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons and proves an extremely popular novelty product for Cadbury at Easter. This year, the chick will not feature its traditional purple waist coat and will instead be predominantly yellow, making it brighter and more prominent and visible in-store.

There will also be a clear message on the chick itself that it contains Cadbury Buttons inside the outer shell, a rather unique feature in the novelties category.

Valentine's Day and Mother's Day
Giving and sharing are particularly important themes for both Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. In 2008, for Valentine's Day, Giving and Sharing grew by 4%, driven by Everyday Gifting, up an incredible 23% year on year.

The core Cadbury brands driving growth during these Spring Occasions include Milk Tray which is targeted at Valentine's Day, and Roses at Mother's Day. Milk Tray drove growth in Everyday Gift across both Valentine's Day (+39%) and Mother's Day (+11%), whilst Roses similarly showed a strong performance in its category with Valentine's Day in growth at +27% and gaining a +2% share for Mother's Day.

Kate Harding comments: "Cadbury Milk Tray is an iconic brand with excellent levels of brand awareness and a clear preference in its category. To maximise the overall sales opportunity, retailers should stock Milk Tray and Roses to help drive increased basket spend."

For Spring 2009, Cadbury will use these two key brands to drive even greater growth in the category across the season and focus on in-store execution - using Cadbury brands to bring the occasions to life in store.

Kate Harding concludes: "Overall, Spring is a key time for confectionery purchases so both availability and visibility are key. If consumers cannot easily find products or there is a limited quantity on display, they are less likely to buy.

"Making it easy for consumers to find products will mean that they will be able to help them enjoy the magic of the season as early as possible, driving sales throughout the season."

Source: Cadbury