Speaking to Marketing Week, Whitehouse said that the Mr Kipling maker, which has significantly invested in multimillion pound television campaigns for power brands including Oxo and Bisto over the last 12 months, will now move to revamp smaller brands such as Lyons and Paxo.
Premier Foods is set to double consumer marketing spend in the first quarter of the year after total sales slipped 4.6% in the fourth quarter of 2014, and Whitehouse expects double digit growth in ad spend across the next two years.
“We just brought Homepride back on the TV for the first time in donkey’s years and you’ll see similar activity now brand-by-brand whether that’s sleeping products such as Paxo or Smash,” he said. “We now have the scope and space to one-by-one refresh every brand in the Premier portfolio, and I’m confident you’ll see results – every power brand we’ve invested in so far has achieved sustained sales growth.”
The FMCG giant posted a 3.5% drop to £158m in power brand sales on products such as Mr Kipling over the fourth quarter of 2014 despite upping marketing spend by a whopping 80%. However, things did pick up towards the end of the year with power brands such as Mr Kipling seeing retail sales rise by 28% YOY in December.
“Look, the external marketing environment is tough right now with food inflation, stagnant volumes and a competitiveness we’ve not seen in generations,” admitted Whitehouse. “But we have a great set of brands and need to remind customers that they belong in their baskets.
Last year it emerged that Premier Foods had tried to obtain investment payments in return for contracts from suppliers as a way to generate income from non-working media. However, Whitehouse refused to comment on the controversial scheme, instead saying he was ‘purely focused on the consumer.’
He added: “A lot of our power brands have been around for a long time, what we’ve changed is the way our marketing team assesses market trends so they can stay relevant. It could be Homepride introducing a Piri Piri sauce or Mr Kipling placing close attention to trends in the independent bakery market, that, long-term, will help sales.”
Although admitting Premier had upped its social media spend, Whitehouse, citing Bisto’s Together ad, which went out to 10 million people during a prime time slot during this year’s I’m A Celebrity on ITV, says high-profile television campaigns are still creating the ‘most comprehensive results’.
In January, Premier’s category business director Claire Harrison-Church joined Asda as its new VP of marketing. She has been replaced internally by marketing director Phil Ellis. Premier, meanwhile, will also take on P&G senior marketing manager Yilmaz Erceyes in March as it says it will ‘continue to recruit top marketing talent’.
Premier Foods on packaging
Whitehouse says the marketing team, which is led by Helen Warren-Piper, is being tasked with introducing new packaging formats, such as pouches and meal kits, in a bid to increase the value of products. There will be significant investment in packaging NPD in 2015.
Premier Foods on social
Much like the Walkers Do Us A Flavour campaign, Premier will introduce a social media campaign urging consumers to come up with brand new flavours for one of its power brands later this year.
Premier on Tesco
Tesco, Premier’s biggest retail customer, recently announced plans to cut its product listings by 30% and, unsurprisingly, Whitehouse backed the move predicting it will ensure that the “big brands will win while giving customers clearer choice and less clutter”.
Although Premier supplies the discounters Aldi and Lidl with limited supplies, Whitehouse isn’t convinced of their long term growth.
“It depends on whether you think the rise of the discounters is cyclical or a permanent shift – I’m convinced it will top out at some point,” he added. But at the end of the day we are a brand builder and the supermarkets are where Premier’s future is.”
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