PENETRATING INSIGHTS
Some brands are making success look easy
Penetration refers to the percentage of households that purchase a particular consumer product or brand within a given period. As we know, it is an important metric for the FMCG industry, as it indicates the potential market size for a particular product or brand.
However, achieving high household penetration can be challenging, as it typically requires a combination of effective marketing, strong distribution channels, and unique product proposition to drive brand trial and repeat purchases.
Penetration requires a combination of effective marketing, strong distribution channels, and unique product proposition
Unilever-owned Sunsilk has achieved remarkable success in the hair care sector, thanks to its focus on delivering affordable, effective products to consumers around the world. The brand has found 32.2 million new shoppers, had 14% CRP growth, and jumped two spots in the Worldpanel global rank.
One of the key drivers of Sunsilk’s success has been its performance in top markets like India, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Brazil. The brand embodies a potent message of fostering self-assurance in young women to realise their dreams, a self-assurance that comes, at least in part, from having hair that looks and feels beautiful, while simultaneously questioning societal conventions and traditional frameworks.
In Brazil, the Seda Boom (Seda is the name Sunsilk is marketed as in Brazil) relaunch #FocaNaLiberdade (Focus on Freedom) campaign helped the brand grow its market share, reaching 40 million people through a reality show featuring live celebrities for 72 hours.
Oreo has achieved remarkable success by taking advantage of a product flywheel effect, which has allowed the brand to extend and stretch its offerings beyond its cookie foundations. One example of this is Oreo’s frozen products, which include a range of frozen treats such as ice-creams, cones, pots, and sandwiches. This move has helped Oreo find 26 million new shoppers and expand into new markets.
Yet, even as it expands into new categories, biscuits remain at the core of Oreo’s business, and the brand has continued to find success with new shoppers in markets like India. In India, Oreo gained a whopping 5.7 million new shoppers and saw an increase in penetration points by 19 million buyers in 2022.
Mondelez-owned Oreo can attribute some of their success to initiatives such as its #StayPlayful campaign, which celebrates the fun and playful aspects of the brand and evokes memories of family moments. This campaign has helped reinforce Oreo’s position as a heritage brand while also reimagining its portfolio to stretch from the pantry to the freezer.
Overall, Oreo’s success is a testament to its ability to innovate and evolve while staying true to its core values and heritage. By expanding into new categories and markets while continuing to focus on its core business, Oreo has established itself as a leader in the biscuit industry.
Ariel, a brand owned by Procter & Gamble, has achieved remarkable success in the laundry detergent industry thanks to its commitment to delivering innovative, sustainable, and effective solutions that meet the needs of consumers around the world.
Ariel has found 17.5 million new shoppers, had 11% CRP growth, and jumped six positions on Worldpanel’s latest brand rankings. This success can be attributed to the brand’s strong performance in top growth markets like India, the Philippines, Colombia, and Mainland China, where it has focused on delivering efficient and effective products that resonate with consumers seeking high-quality laundry solutions.
Ariel’s commitment to sustainability is demonstrated by the brand’s Eco-Box, which uses 60% less plastic than traditional detergent bottles and appeals to consumers who are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of the products they use.
In addition to its focus on innovation and sustainability, Ariel has also developed strong marketing campaigns, such as the #ShareTheLoad campaign, which addresses important social issues like gender inequality while also highlighting the efficiency and efficacy of Ariel’s laundry solutions.
With Procter & Gamble’s ownership and its focus on meeting consumer needs while addressing important issues, Ariel is well-positioned to continue its success in the laundry detergent industry.
Sprite was a clear winner in our global rankings this year. The numbers speak for themselves. Sprite found almost 34 million new shoppers in the space of a year. And they did so in the midst of a global cost-of-living crisis.
Shrenik Dasani led Sprite’s global growth mission and spoke to Kantar about how the Sprite team found such high levels of success off the back of their “Heat Happens” global brand platform and its focus on Gen Z.
The heat is on
He also said their approach was about listening closely to the consumer landscape beyond the binary acts of purchase. “We recognized that these heated moments are part of the fabric of our daily lives. Heat is everywhere, it’s inevitable. It can be easy to lose your cool. So, with “Heat Happens”, we offer consumers one simple reason to refresh and keep cool with an ice-cold Sprite, whether they are on-the-go, or facing the end of a long, heated day, or even the heat from their favourite spicy food.”
Of course, it would be easy to argue that Sprite in some markets has been easily linked to physical heat, but the brand went further to expand its footprint to provide more engagement opportunities.
Typically light-hearted (and relatable) examples in the Sprite creative executions, built around such everyday heated moments, included:
When you are about to settle down to chill at the end of long, heated day, and your little brother brings out his new favourite musical instrument
Standing in an endless queue at a music festival, in the summer sun
Or when your WiFi gives out in the middle of your favorite TV show
Dasani said this real-world approach to execution was intentional. “It was brought to life with a globally relevant, locally nuanced platform featuring real-time digital and social experiences, music experiences and content, and new consumer, shopper and out-of-home communication that tapped into relevant and topical moments and passion points.”
He said they were also able to take full global advantage of the tension of “heat” that resonated with all regions, and the universal proposition of Sprite being the element that ensures you never lose to the heat.
Dasani said the proposition enabled them to create authentic and witty social content based on audience insights about seemingly innocent situations escalating and becoming heated quickly.
“These helped engage with our target audience, whilst ‘Heat Hacks’, our on-pack instant rewards program, which rolled out in key markets, helped our fans beat the ‘heat’ of everyday life, whether they are at home or on-the-go.”
Identifying demand
Put simply, Sprite achieved a new level of relatability. To gain deeper insights into this accomplishment, Kantar closely examined the market using Worldpanel's Demand Moments lens to understand the underlying factors.
As an example, we chose the United Kingdom, where Sprite excelled in various consumer occasions known as Demand Moments. Specifically, Sprite outperformed in the "Routine and Recharge" and "Family Favourite" Demand Moments. This indicates that Sprite was a popular choice for satisfying moments of personal refreshment and enjoyable experiences with others, perfectly aligning with the expectations of the brand’s Gen Z customers.
Worldpanel saw similar alignment with occasions and retail channels in some of the biggest global markets. In China, Sprite adapted to the pandemic-induced change in consumer behaviour by capitalising on proximity channels like grocery stores, mini markets, and convenience stores. The brand also leveraged online-to-offline platforms like Ele.me and Meituan to deliver products in a convenient shopping experience in an uncertain environment.
“Our global focus on Zero Sugar was also sharply relevant in the case of China, where the zero-sugar segment has seen strong growth in the past years – and hence was the right opportunity for Sprite to capitalise on. We deployed our new visual identity in China (which enables Sprite Zero Sugar to stand out), brought highly engaging and exciting experiences around Sprite Zero Sugar to consumers, and our system in China focused on accelerating availability and commercial execution for it, leading to these results.”
Insight–led recruitment
So how did Sprite go about identifying its 34 million new shoppers? “With our primary target consumer identified as ‘Gen Z navigating a heated world’, this allowed us to expand our audience to a set of humans for whom our proposition is highly relevant. The type of experiences and messaging were based on micro insights related to the heated moments of everyday life faced by them,” Dasani said.
It also unlocked new opportunities for Sprite Zero Sugar. The brand was able to address a segment which had not been as strongly exposed to the brand in the past. This immediately unlocked new growth avenues for Sprite. “The role of market research was critical in ensuring we always remain focused on the consumers we seek to serve, and our internal discussions, alongside our agency partners, on mining those findings for strong, scalable insights, were crucial in showing us the way forward.”
For example, in India, Kantar found clear evidence that Sprite’s focus on driving penetration beyond the core classes of affluent groups in metropolitan areas, resulted in shopper recruitment in underleveraged pockets in smaller towns and villages where there was untapped demand.
Music matters
Strategic partnerships built around consumer passion points, also played a key role. Music was at the core of the strategy. In June 2022, Sprite launched its new music program, Sprite Limelight, in four key markets - a passion point activation and investment to engage consumers through music in partnership with Universal Music Group for Brands.
Sprite Limelight Season 1 featured a Grammy-winning producer and global artists who collectively introduced a totally new and unique method of making music, composing a central hook, or chorus, that inspired each artist to create their own original songs.
The launch benefitted from the first-of-its-kind globally coordinated roll-out, reigniting Sprite’s heritage in music and delivering widespread reach and engagement via social, PR and influence, as well as through local market-led media amplification.
The content secured 444 million views, 15.8 million shares, 8.8 million PR impressions and 19.8 million comments across social media, successfully connecting the brand with a new generation of consumers like never before.
Future facing
Dasani was also able to recognise the learnings that came in 2022 and continue into 2023. He pointed to three of them:
There is no greater investment in the brand than staying close to our consumers.
It takes significant effort and some good luck to chance upon an insight that is not just universal but also scalable.
Whilst it is good to be based on universal insights, it is key to nuance executions in local markets to suit the local cultural context.
And looking forward, what comes next? “We will remain focused on consumer needs and keep learning and evolving, with the goal of bringing relevant and exciting experiences and products to them. This will inform all of our marketing and innovation strategies in the future. At the same time, our system will continue to work on bringing the right packages, at the right price, easily and conveniently available whenever consumers face moments of heat (whether on or offline).”
“We will remain focused on consumer needs and keep learning and evolving, with the goal of bringing relevant and exciting experiences and products to them. This will inform all of our marketing and innovation strategies in the future."
