>>How is one of last year's top launches faring?
Product: Hellmann’s range of snack sauces
Company: Unilever Bestfoods
Launch date: August 2003
When Unilever Bestfoods threw its famous Hellmann’s brand into the table sauce market more than a year ago, it knew it would be doing battle in a very different sector from its usual habitat. And so far it is questionable whether the move has paid off for the food giant.
Backed by an £8m launch spend, four snack sauces joined the family last August, including Burger Sauce, Curry Sauce, Saucy Chip Dip and Hot and Spicy Tomato Sauce. The latter has already been replaced by a BBQ variant, proving that Unilever did not get it right the first time.
The line has captured less than 13% of the £2m total thick sauces market [ACNielsen Homescan, four w/e September 4 2004], a proportion that translates to £240,000 in value. “To use the Hellmann’s brand on different products is a good idea in theory but I doubt it has delivered for Unilever,” says one buyer. “The marketing campaign is very good and it links with the rest of the Hellmann’s marketing, but the cost of the television advertising has probably not paid for itself yet.”
Burger sauce is the fastest-selling product in the range, which is aimed at teenage snackers, with Saucy Chip Dip coming second.
But while those products have contributed to a small amount of incremental growth within the category, “they have failed to set the world on fire”, adds the buyer, who predicts the range will shrink to two or three products with the slower-selling flavours replaced by more common ones.
When Unilever Bestfoods threw its famous Hellmann’s brand into the table sauce market more than a year ago, it knew it would be doing battle in a very different sector from its usual habitat. And so far it is questionable whether the move has paid off for the food giant.
Backed by an £8m launch spend, four snack sauces joined the family last August, including Burger Sauce, Curry Sauce, Saucy Chip Dip and Hot and Spicy Tomato Sauce. The latter has already been replaced by a BBQ variant, proving that Unilever did not get it right the first time.
The line has captured less than 13% of the £2m total thick sauces market [ACNielsen Homescan, four w/e September 4 2004], a proportion that translates to £240,000 in value. “To use the Hellmann’s brand on different products is a good idea in theory but I doubt it has delivered for Unilever,” says one buyer. “The marketing campaign is very good and it links with the rest of the Hellmann’s marketing, but the cost of the television advertising has probably not paid for itself yet.”
Burger sauce is the fastest-selling product in the range, which is aimed at teenage snackers, with Saucy Chip Dip coming second.
But while those products have contributed to a small amount of incremental growth within the category, “they have failed to set the world on fire”, adds the buyer, who predicts the range will shrink to two or three products with the slower-selling flavours replaced by more common ones.
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