2020 was an unprecedented year for all of us. FMCG is no exception to that. We observed a lot of changes in consumer habits, visiting visit physical stores less often but spend more on each visit.
Shoppers also purchased more categories for their household, especially from food and hygiene sectors. Due movement control orders, people stayed at home more, which helped many food brands to grow via increased in-home consumption.
Despite the general growth trend for FMCG , there are some clear winners who found ways to grow much faster than their rivals and move up the CRP charts. A good example is Farm Fresh, which maintained high loyalty and grew its shopper base significantly.
We predict that in-home consumption will still be in growth over the next 12-18 months as people continue to spend more time at home than in previous years.
Thailand
It is no surprise that Food and Beverage brands maintain their grip on the ranking of the most chosen FMCG brands in Thailand benefitting from high frequency of usage, which significantly increases their Consumer Reach Points (CRPs) in a year.
Traditionally, to feature in the top 3, brands must perform well in both penetration and consumer choice, and 2020 was no exception.
Dutch Mill secured the No. 1 position, and it is the most chosen brand among FMCG brands. As a result of COVID, the number of shopping occasions has declined and most brands’ CRP decreased during the year. Dutch Mill was no exception and its CRP declined by 5%. However, it still has a 7 million CRP gap with the 2nd Brand in the market. Mama took the 2nd position again in 2020. As the leading instant noodles brand, it didn’t suffer any loss of CRP during COVID thanks to the rise in in-home dining occasions. Eight out of 10 Thai households purchased the brand last year so in order to close the gap with No. 1, it has to improve consumer choices.
In the take-home market (excluding out of home consumption), Lay’s boosted its popularity during the COVID pandemic, gaining more CRP. It is the only brand in the top 10 that recorded the positive growth in CRP.
Many of the fastest growing brands are within the Food & Beverage sector as COVID-19 boosted in-home consumption of beverage, snack and food products. C-Vitt features in the Water Plus category, a new segment of Water with additional health benefits. It was growing even before the pandemic, but the brand enjoyed the continuous growth during the year as focus on health grew stronger during the pandemic. The growth of Aroy-D, a coconut milk brand, also represents the increased level of in-home cooking during the COVID-19 crisis.
More local brands made the fastest growing brands list than multinational brands. Bennett is a good example, featuring traditional Thai herbs in its soap bars and it continues to grow year after year despite a premium price.
Sasa successfully generated growth across cooking aid categories including MSG, meal makers and coconut milk, attracting more than 2.5 million households in 2020. In addition to new communications designed to appeal to younger consumers the brand regularly shares innovative recipe ideas that extend beyond Indonesian cuisine.
Thai consumers chose Nescafé 135 million times last year, enabling the brand to take the No. 1 spot again in the take-home beverage market. With the decline in shopping frequency, all top 5 beverage brands suffered CRP decline. However, two coffee brands, Nescafe and Birdy, managed to boost penetration year on year.
Dutch Mill’s penetration and consumer choice are significantly much higher than most other brands, ensuring it maintains the No. 1 position in the FMCG and Dairy sectors. Yakult has one of the highest consumer choice scores but lower penetration is holding it back. Brands that want to grow and improve their ranking must increase both penetration and consumer choice.
Top Food brands have relatively higher CRP than other sectors and there are four brands with more than 100 million CRP. During the COVID pandemic, food brands suffered the least impact on consumer choices since in-home snacking and dining occasions increased. This helped the top 2 brands, Mama and Lay’s, avoid CRP decline.
Hygiene secured the No. 1 position in 2020 by wining on CRP against competitors, especially in the fabric softener category. In the fabric detergent market, OMO won on consumer choices and was the only brand with positive CRP growth among the top 5.
It will be interesting to see how much additional CRP OMO can find with its new dish wash detergent, a brand extension that takes it into a new category.
Colgate is the clear winner in Health & Beauty sector for another year and both its penetration and consumer choice showed a wide gap with rival brands. Most top brands in suffered a loss of CRP as Thai shoppers cut down on shopping frequency during COVID.
Nivea, which operates in a range of Health & Beauty categories, managed to find growth to balance out any losses and was the only brand among top 5 that didn’t record a CRP decline.
The fastest growing brand in the dairy sector
In the year of the pandemic, Dmalt managed to gain CRP faster than any other dairy brand. It succeeded not only in expanding its buyer base, but also in creating a higher number of purchase occasions.
Behind Dmalt’s great achievement was its ‘5THB 10THB’ campaign, which it ran throughout the year at PVS nationwide to help combat post-COVID recession. This pricing strategy brought opportunities for Dmalt to win more purchases in a time of economic difficulty.
Dutchmill, Dmalt’s parent company, also enhanced its brand image through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, giving away over two million product items across Thailand.
In addition to its effective buyer recruitment strategy, Dmalt emphasised the benefits of its products in strengthening immune systems against COVID, and utilised its powerful distribution network as a direct sales channel to deliver goods during the lockdown period.
Spokesperson Uthai Thanesvorakul, Chief Executive Officer, I.P. One Co., Ltd.
What makes Hygiene unique? It has been nearly 50 years of unrelentless commitment since the I.P. One company started operating in Thailand. We have always been determined to deliver only high-quality products through our innovation and development, with the ultimate purpose of helping to improve quality of life for Thais. We continuously conduct consumer research and studies to help us understand consumer behaviour and the ever-changing needs of Thais. Through innovation, utmost care and attention to the details, we are confident that our products not only meet our consumers’ expectations but also delivering superior usage experience.
Hygiene is the only brand in the Thai market that currently offers products covering the complete range of fabric care. We are able to satisfy every stage of laundry process, whether the pre-treat, detergent, fabric softener or ironing starch; and we also include fabric freshener. This range allows us to satisfy our various diverse consumer segments and Hygiene is not only embraced by Thai consumers but is also recognised in other international markets.
What were your challenges & biggest success in 2020 under COVID-19? Why? The most prominent challenge in 2020 was to accommodate the developing uncertainty resulting from the pandemic. The market and consumer behaviour has been hit hard by the crisis and demands have fluctuated. The crisis has also influenced our customers’ and business partners’ ordering behaviours. Other challenges include the volatile market as well as fierce price and promotion activity.
Our biggest success is maintaining Hygiene’s growth, not only staying in the positive territory but also the highest amongst brands in fabric softener category. And for the third consecutive year, Hygiene continues to be the No. 1 Most Chosen Brand in the Home Care category.
The vital elements that maintained our ongoing success include our great quality products line-up, which consistently satisfy our consumers, and our resilient, ever-ready, hard-working and dedicated team.
We consistently monitor and assess the situation on a day-to-day basis. All our departments, including the Commercial team, R&D, Production, Supply & Demand and Corporate Services, worked in tandem to serve our consumers’ fluid needs in the most agile, timely and effective fashion. It’s thanks to this great team effort that our business has been able to sail through this storm with such flying colours.
What did you do differently during COVID-19 pandemic, to still reach your consumers? And what did enable you to do that in the evolving environment of COVID-19? (i.e., data, insights) Thanks to our extensive product portfolio, we have been able to adjust our strategies by focusing on and prioritising the fabric care and homecare categories with disinfecting and good-hygiene attributes during this crisis.
We also conducted the CSR campaign “Message to Hero”; sending words of
encouragement and thank you messages, along with our fabric-care/home care products to the healthcare professionals and healthcare volunteers across Thailand.
In 2020, we launched the latest concentrated fabric softener product in our “Feel Good series”. Thanks to our innovation. for the very first time a concentrated fabric softener is able to deliver not just fragrance but also mood-shifting experiences – making users feel happy and relaxed. This product was well received by consumers.
How did you utilize Worldpanel data in order to stay relevant and resilient in the challenging time? At IP One, “Being Insightful” has always been one of our core values. We operate our business based on data and insight utilisation from various sources and also by data connection and deep analysis. These insights feed into our strategic marketing approach and lead to effective action plans.
Kantar's Worldpanel data has proven to be a very useful source, which has been helping us understand consumer spending behaviour. It also allows us to dynamically develop and modify our strategies as well as execution plans to better respond to the evolving market.
