A brand share drop, & gains to nearest competitor can give the jitters to any brand manager. Time to ring your insights consultant to answer a few simple questions – why, how, where… in the next two hours! Time to get your hands dirty. In such situations my best friends are invariably syndicated & secondary data. Using Retail Audit data provided by the client, I set to work. The drop was in the festive season, implying consumer travel & higher out-of-home consumption. Regional Analysis showed loss was prevalent in all markets, but more in larger towns. Worrying. Had the competition done a distribution blitzkrieg? No. Consumer Promotions? Nope.
Oh well!
Channel analysis indicated MT accounted for 77% of category, out of which 60% was by Mini Marts. And a red flag – share reversal really stood out there. Further digging & voila! Average Price in Minimarts for competition was down by 30%, and a SKU analysis indicated that competition had pushed in mega packs at a discounted price. Clever! Of course this condensed post looks simple, but with 13 regions, 9 brands, multiple variants and 345 skus, it was tiring. But, as my first mentor used to tell me, keep digging, with the business requirement in your line of sight. Because, the devil is always in the detail. Bugger it!