Growth patterns and drivers: what worked over the past five years?
We investigate share growth and how it links with other KPIs and marketing activities between 2019 and 2023. Patterns throughout the Covid-19 years largely match pre-Covid-19 learnings.
Buyer numbers key to share growth
Comparing brands that were able to grow share most (in terms of absolute percentage change 2023-2019) to other share growth tiers highlights the importance of buyer numbers: changes in share closely align with changes in the number of category buyers that a brand manages to reach. Frequency changes differ less between winning and losing brands and even the winners see purchase frequency decline on average (potentially a more lasting behavioral shift?).
Distribution and assortment size
Winning brands outperform losing brands in terms of distribution and assortment. While we cannot make a clear assertion about causality, growth clearly links to both:
- Better availability: how likely will shoppers encounter a brand when visiting a store?
- More choice: how many SKUs of the brand can I find (even though it is unlikely that all are on display in every retailer carrying the brand)?
Price promotions down, but less so for winners
Promotional pressure between 2019 and 2023 has decreased across all share change tiers. While the four tiers started out with similar promotional intensity (1 in 6 Euros sold came from a promotional transaction in 2019), the winning tiers experienced a less pronounced drop: Their share of price-promoted sales declined by about 1% while the drop amongst share-losing brands reached more than 3.5%.
