Grocery -—— Food & BeveraGes
Alcoholic Beverages — Beer
Alcoholic Beverages — Beer
Category Captain
Category Advisor
Anheuser-Busch
MillerCoors
Alcoholic Beverages — Wine
display locations for wine is the produce department, due to the heavy cross-purchasing behavior there. Tese fndings, along with the rest of the insights gained from its research, allowed Gallo to better advise its retail partners. Shortly after the research was completed, Gallo conducted a full chain analysis with a customer, and ended up identifying new opportunities to help it compete more successfully. Gallo ultimately helped the retailer grow the category to capture its fair share of the market, while also growing the important premium-plus-price segment and supporting local brands. In the frst 14 weeks since implementing changes, the total wine category was up 30 percent (versus 2 percent pre-test), with average weekly sales growing by more than 23 percent. Te department reinvention saw such great success that the retailer plans to continue expanding the concept.
Anheuser-Busch used its Retail Feature Tool to help its partners better execute their feature advertising strategies. Since beer is a high-trafc category with anywhere from 200 to 600 SKUs in a set, retailers are faced with many choices in their planning. Additionally, they must navigate laws that restrict contracts and market-level pricing. Anheuser-Busch’s tool divides the category according to its key segments (premium, import, craft, value and premium plus) and pack sizes; then it analyzes beer data according to household penetration and total dollar distribution. If retailers want to go further, they can look at data on a national, regional or local level. Te tool also leverages previously unavailable data collected through the use of InfoScout’s mobile panel. Tis allows retailers to better connect to their beer shoppers, and ultimately execute the best advertising combinations in individual markets. Retailers using the tool are seeing increases in trafc and incremental rises in beer dollars. Earlier this year, one retailer in a top metropolitan market implemented a feature program based on the tool’s analysis. In the two months since the program’s launch, retail beer dollars are up 8.5 percent, incremental sales dollars from beer features are up 65.1 percent, and the retailer’s share of market is up 0.8 percent, which is nearly $50,000 per week in beer sales.
Category Captain
E&J Gallo Winery
As wine consumption continues to grow, E&J Gallo Winery has urged its retailer partners to re-examine their department strategies to ensure they’re meeting shopper needs. To better understand the category, the wine maker conducted the largest-ever study on optimizing the retail environment for beverage alcohol. Tis study examined every aspect of beverage alcohol strategy, from department location and confguration to display optimization and cross-merchandising. Gallo found that the wine department performs best when confgured in a store-within-a-store format merchandised using multiple gondolas. Meanwhile, one of the best
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MillerCoors added excitement to the beer category this year with its Grilling with Guy program. Te company joined forces with restaurateur Guy Fieri to create a customizable program in which retailers could leverage beer-related recipe content from the Grillwithguy.com mobile site. Many grocers created occasion-based displays — some out of the beer department — providing an impulse-shopping and basket-building opportunity. Shoppers could engage digitally in the store on their mobile devices, or through Tweets and Facebook posts by Fieri himself. Some of the country’s leading grocers got on board with the program, including one regional chain that integrated the program into its weekly ad. Another regional chain tested the program during a special burger promotion, and then decided to go full-force after seeing the positive results. In a similar vein, several grocers tied the program into the football season and saw sales in meat increase as a result.
| Progressive Grocer | Ahead of What’s Next | November 2015