Know your shoppers…how understanding barriers can become an opportunity
Background
Primula cheese, owned by Norwegian company Kavli, is a well-established UK cheese brand, recognised for its distinctive and convenient tube format.
Over the previous two years, the Spreadable Cheese category in GB Grocery Multiples had declined by 7% in volume. While Primula was not immune to these category pressures, the brand remained a key player with strong consumer awareness, broad distribution, and a clear point of difference within the market, but was suffering similar challenges to the market.
The team asked TRKR to uncover the key drivers behind the market decline so that they could then identify how to respond.
Approach
The project was a combination of market data and bespoke insight:
EPOS data: understanding market dynamics such as price, promotions, rate of sale and distribution within the category
PANEL data: identifying how shopper behaviour has changed within the category. Had shoppers switched their spend from processed cheese spreads to more natural soft cheese?
Consumer Usage data: what are the key drivers and usage occasions for soft cheese and how are these changing?
The insight identified that the Primula brand had very high awareness levels within the category, only Philadelphia and Dairylea ranking higher, but this wasn’t translating into shoppers or sales.
It also showed that there were many lapsed shoppers - both one-time triers and regular shoppers, as well as those who knew the brand but hadn’t tried it.
Yet those who did buy it, bought it regularly and most often.
Result
So what was the problem?
One of the barriers uncovered was that Primula was being perceived as being more highly processed to other cheese spread brands, particularly in the tube format.
Not ideal, but the good news for the brand was that this was an easy challenge to overcome, because a strength of the product is that it is made from real ingredients - real cheese, real ham etc, with no artifical colours, flavours or preservatives.
So, no reformulation needed, and it provided the team with a great opportunity to freshen up their marketing with positive, reassuring messaging.
In summary….real insight, from real shoppers, uncovered a real barrier…which is now being addressed