Biggest brands

The 2005 Biggest Brands table, compiled exclusively for Marketing by TNS
Superpanel, shows the number of top 50 brands that grew their sales fell
to 60% from 80% over the past year, with just three brands growing by
20% or more - half last year's number. Thirteen brands lost sales, the
worst hit being Persil (down 11%) and McCain (10%).

As the most comprehensive overview of grocery brands in a year, the data
in these tables provides a yardstick for consumerism today. It allows
marketers to track the brands outperforming or under-performing their
rivals, and to spot category trends.

While all the names in the top 50 will be familiar, many will have moved
up the table due to a combination of successful marketing, product
launches, trade promotion activity and broader distribution, or down
because of a lack of marketing support or increased competition. The
most successful brands, in absolute income terms as well as sales
increases, are those that best tap into the underlying - and often
contradictory - consumer trends of health, convenience and
indulgence.

The power of the healthy food movement is evident in the fact that six
of the 13 brands that lost sales this year fall into the category of
'unhealthy' foods. McCain suffers from producing food that is not only
frozen (which is generally thought to be less healthy than chilled), but
also perceived to be 'junk'. The core of the McCain proposition, albeit
implicitly, is 'junk food at home', and it clearly needs to innovate, as
the crisps and soft drinks markets have, to produce healthier
variants.

'Consumers' perception of McCain is a bit one-dimensional,' says
Jonathan Hall, global client managing director at Added Value. 'It
produces more than chips, but needs to invest in its brand and its
communications to make that clear, as well as innovating to create some
news. McDonald's, which is shifting perceptions by offering healthier
alternatives on its menu, could be an interesting model.' Indeed, McCain
is already developing a plan to enhance the nutritional profile of its
products.

Walkers buoyed

Although Walkers' ranking at the top of the table is unthreatened, it
has been hit by health trends. Sales fell 2% last year, from a high of
nearly £520m to £505m, following a 12% rise the year before.
However, the brand's decline was less than that of the crisps market as
a whole (which fell 3%), helped by the success of Quavers, which grew by
17% on the back of a Halloween promotion, and the launch of lower-fat
variants Walkers Lites and Potato Heads.

Persil experienced the biggest sales decline of any top 50 brand. The
leading laundry brand in the UK, with 39% penetration of a
near-saturated market, it has gained share in the past through
innovations such as unit dosing. But a lack of recent product
development, combined with the threat from rival Bold, which has grown
annual sales by 16% on the back of a relaunch, has hit it hard.

Persil is trying to reverse its fortunes with the 'Dirt is good' ad
campaign, which features young children. 'It is too soon to judge the
effect,' says Warwick Cairns, planning director at Brandhouse WTS.

'Persil's advertising represents a paradigm shift, in that detergent
advertising has traditionally focused on product performance, but now
that performance is less of a differentiator, brands are trying to forge
more emotional associations.'

The only brand in the top 10 that has experienced significant movement
over the past year is Muller, which moved up from seventh to fifth place
following an impressive 14% growth in sales. It was helped by strong
sector growth, but has consolidated its dominance of the market with
ongoing format and flavour innovation. Muller accounts for four of the
top 10 yoghurt brands.

One brand challenging Muller's dominance is Danone, which grew sales by
31% last year. Its range of products include Evian water and blockbuster
dairy brands Danone Activia, a probiotic yoghurt, and Actimel, a
probiotic drink. These make Danone ideally placed to capitalise on the
consumer health and wellbeing trends, and led to its strongest organic
growth ever in 2004.

Nescafe's 14% sales increase, much like Muller's, derives from its
dominance of the instant-coffee market. It is strong on NPD and has
harnessed the popularity of coffee bar culture with a range of
speciality coffees, including instant cappuccinos. It also continues to
flex its advertising muscle, with the use of Trinny and Susannah of TV's
What Not to Wear fame in a campaign for Gold Blend proving an inspired
choice.

Bread brand Warburtons was also a strong performer this year, with its
16% sales rise impressive in what many would regard as a commoditised
category - not to mention a declining one in terms of volume sales.
However, bread was the fourth-fastest-growing category last year, with
brand sales up 8%, largely attributable to product launches that tapped
into health and premium trends.

'Warburtons is the Hovis for the 21st century,' says Added Value's
Hall.

'Many people still associate Hovis with its old "cobbled-street" ads,
which has rooted the brand in the past, but Warburtons has retained and
used its heritage and authenticity while introducing modernity.'

Flora owes its 20% sales rise to its command of the three key
considerations of health, taste and convenience. Flora Light Spread grew
sales by 17%, extending the variant's penetration to nearly a quarter of
British households.

Flora Pro-Activ Light Spread, with its cholesterol-lowering properties,
is the one specific health product in the market, and it vies with
Lurpak Spreadable for top spot in the yellow fats category, based on its
substantial price premium.

Flora also benefits from an ageing population and its long association
with the London Marathon. Hall believes it is well-placed to extend its
healthy-active platform to other food and drink areas.

Fox's Biscuits made one of the biggest leaps up the table, from 50 to
38, on the strength of an 18% rise in sales - surprising for an
'unhealthy' brand. Chocolate biscuit bar Rocky accounted for nearly a
quarter of total sales in this category of £118m, but the growth
was also driven by a 46% sales rise for Echo.

Both Rocky and Echo reflect Fox's recognition of the convergence of the
confectionery and biscuit sectors, and play to consumers' indulgent
desires.

Fox's also benefited from significant promotional activity, and the
launch of premium range Creations and an Officially Low Fat cookie and
biscuit line, which contributed 6% of sales.

'Fox's' traditional business in biscuit assortments was under threat, so
it has reinvented itself as the provider of convenient chocolate biscuit
bars that blur the boundary between chocolate confectionery and
biscuits,' says Brandhouse WTS' Cairns.

Carlsberg enjoyed the biggest sales rise in the top 50, with a 43%
increase, a performance that bucked the overall 1% decline in the beer
and lager market. The brand was helped in no short measure by its
sponsorship of both the Euro 2004 football tournament and the England
team, and has sustained its success.

It has been helped by prominent exposure in Tesco, which attracts more
shoppers during the eight-week Christmas period than either Asda or
Sainsbury's attract in a year. More households bought Carlsberg this
year than last - and they bought it more often and spent more on it per
trip.

The signs are that Carlsberg is seeking to break the increasing
commoditisation of the lager market by forging a more emotional
connection with consumers though extending the 'Carlsberg occasion'
theme of its ads into a more experiential approach.

So, what of the other brands in the top 50 and the reasons for their
rise and fall? On the following pages, there follows a breakdown of
brands by category as well as a compilation of the top impulse buys and
own-label brands.

BIGGEST BRANDS DATA SOURCE AND METHODOLOGY

All the data used to compile Marketing's Biggest Brands list has been
provided by TNS using syndicated databases from the Superpanel and
Impulse services.

Superpanel is a sample of 15,000 households around Great Britain, which
is representative demographically, and geographically, of Great Britain
as a whole. Using an in-home barcode-scanning device, panellists scan
their entire take-home purchasing. As the sample is representative of
Great Britain, these purchase records can be grossed up to represent
purchasing behaviour of every British home.

The list has been compiled from the Superpanel Retailer Share Track
database, which is a total grocery database covering 234 of the biggest
markets within five categories (fresh foods, packaged grocery, alcohol,
toiletries and healthcare).

Superpanel covers 'take-home' purchasing only. To cover products that
may be more likely to be consumed out of the home, data has also been
provided on the biggest brands within impulse categories. TNS Impulse
panel covers nine product categories and uses a panel of 5250
individuals who record their impulse purchases and are telephoned to
communicate their impulse purchasing.

All the data provided is for the 52 weeks ending 19 June 2005.

TOP 50 SUPERMARKET BRANDS

Rank Brand Sales (pounds m) % chng
2005 2004 2005 2004
1 1 Walkers crisps/snacks 500-505 515-520 -2
2 2 Birds Eye 495-500 515-520 -3
3 3 Kellogg 485-490 495-500 -2
4 4 Cadbury 480-485 480-485 0
5 7 Muller 425-430 375-380 14
6 5 Heinz 425-430 430-435 -2
7 6 Coke/Diet Coke 385-390 385-390 1
8 9 Bernard Matthews 335-340 335-340 0
9 8 McVitie's 330-335 340-345 -3
10 10 Stella Artois 310-315 305-310 1
11 13 Warburtons 290-295 250-255 16
12 14 Nescafe 285-290 245-250 14
13 11 Pampers 265-270 265-270 -2
14 12 Hovis 255-260 250-255 2
15 15 Andrex 240-245 230-235 5
16 20 Nestle cereals 225-230 205-210 9
17 16 Kingsmill 225-230 210-215 7
18 17 Weight Watchers 215-220 210-215 3
19 27 Danone 205-210 155-160 31
20 23 Pedigree 205-210 195-200 5
21 19 Whiskas 195-200 210-215 -7
22 24 Young's 190-195 170-175 12
23 18 McCain 190-195 210-215 -10
24 22 Robinsons 185-190 200-205 -7
25 25 Felix 180-185 160-165 13
26 21 Persil 180-185 205-210 -11
27 33 Flora 170-175 140-145 20
28 28 Hardys 160-165 150-155 6
29 26 Princes Foods 155-160 155-160 0
30 30 Carling 150-155 150-155 3
31 29 Ariel 150-155 150-155 0
32 31 Wall's 150-155 145-150 4
33 32 Pepsi 150-155 140-145 4
34 36 Colgate 135-140 130-135 3
35 37 Silver Spoon 130-135 130-135 2
36 34 KP 130-135 135-140 -5
37 35 Nivea 125-130 130-135 -2
38 50 Fox's 115-120 95-100 18
39 39 Kit Kat 115-120 110-115 3
40 42 Dove 115-120 105-110 7
41 41 Lurpak 115-120 105-110 6
42 40 Lynx 115-120 110-115 4
43 38 Comfort 105-110 115-120 -8
44 43 Mr Kipling 105-110 105-110 2
45 n/a Baileys 105-110 90-95 17
46 n/a Oral B 100-105 100-105 1
47 46 John West 100-105 100-105 0
48 n/a Velvet 100-105 90-95 10
49 n/a Carlsberg 100-105 70-75 43
50 n/a Grolsch 95-100 95-100 0

Source: TNS Superpanel. The 2004 figures differ from those published
last year due to a change in TNS' methodology. All the figures above are
compiled using the same methodology