Hovis is looking to rejuvenate its brand and increase its share of the UK bread market.
Premier Foods is set to relaunch its Hovis brand with a GBP13 million advertising campaign. A new logo, new product lines and a series of television adverts will be used in an effort to turn around a decline in market share. Although Hovis has already seen an increase in sales through the first quarter of 2008, competition from key rivals Warburtons and Kingsmill remains fierce.
Premier Foods has announced its intentions to reinvigorate its Hovis bread brand in the UK. A marketing campaign costing GBP13 million will attempt to reverse the brand’s recent decline, which saw a 3.2% decrease in market share year-on-year in 2007.
Along with national advertising, the Hovis wheatsheaf logo is being replaced by an image of a boy and a bike, a reference to the brand’s famous advertising campaign of the 1970s. The ideals of this iconic campaign revolved around homemade food and locally-sourced ingredients, two important factors for modern consumers.
The impact of the ‘credit crunch’ has seen spiraling commodity prices and, in particular, the price of wheat has doubled in the past year. Despite this, sales of white bread have risen in the UK for the first time in a decade and much of this can be attributed to consumers trading down to more basic food items during the currently gloomy economic conditions.
According to Nielsen, Hovis is the second largest player in the UK bread market, with sales of GBP380 million in the year to October 2007. Warburtons remained on top with sales of GBP472 million, while Associated British Foods’ Kingsmill brand recorded revenues of GBP257 million. Warburtons has traditionally been dominant in the north of England, but has recently begun to expand its operations and has subsequently gained market share in other areas of the UK. Kingsmill underwent a successful relaunch in 2007 and has established a strong position in the market despite only being introduced less than 20 years ago in 1989.
Hovis has already seen an increase in sales, with a 14.4% rise being reported for the first quarter of 2008. While Hovis may be able to increase its profits, it will not be easy to gain market share from Warburtons and Kingsmill. Premier Foods looks set to increase sales for its brand, but reclaiming the top spot in the market will prove very difficult.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:50 am
Warburtons has launched a viral marketing campaign to connect with it’s consumers. In order to support its Seeded Batch variety, UK baker Warburtons has announced the launch of an internet marketing campaign called ‘The Seeds of Love’, which will be based around a mini-drama set in an office. The move is reflective of how the company’s traditional marketing portfolio is evolving as it seeks to connect with consumers by turning a product into a brand experience.
Warburtons has announced that it will launch an online viral campaign to promote its Seeded Batch variety.
The campaign, which will run throughout September and October, is targeted at women aged 35-64 and will be supported by on pack and online promotions - including the chance to win a trip to Venice. The viral campaign comes on the back of a recent interactive television promotion, and is reflective of the growing importance of marketing campaigns aimed at connecting with consumers and providing an overall brand experience to support a product.
‘The Seeds of Love’ campaign is further evidence of how Warburtons is moving away from its traditional advertising campaigns that primarily focused on the positioning of its bread as a family product, often using nostalgic and retro images to emphasis the point. In 2007, the company launched a series of television adverts encouraging consumers to send in suggestions of how to improve its products, and the latest campaign will encourage consumers to follow a five-week online mini-drama taking place in an office.
As consumers become more demanding, they are no longer satisfied with products that simply provide a primary function such as satisfying hunger. Instead they are seeking out products that provide an experience and extra levels of fun, which are often considered just as important as the primary function of the product.
Previous mini-drama television advertising campaigns have proved a successful way of interacting with consumers and creating positive perceptions of products: Nescafe’s Gold Blend campaign, for example, attracted 30 million viewers in its peak in the UK. Although Warburtons’ drama series is based online, it should still connect with its target audience. This is because research shows that senior citizens are becoming more comfortable with the internet, leaving less chance that the campaign will fail to connect with consumers towards the upper end of the age group.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:35 am
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