Home baking brands are ramping up marketing activity ahead of the Great British Bake Off’s return to TV next month, as they seek to undo the £47.7m decline suffered over the past 12 months.
The category’s biggest brand, Dr Oetker, lost £6.3m last year, mostly as a result of distribution losses within the mults, while Tate & Lyle sales fell £6.5m and Betty Crocker lost £4m.
Only two of home baking’s leading brands - Silver Spoon and Bear - gained value and volume [IRI 52 w/e 21 May 2016], but sales in the category as a whole fell by 3.9% on volumes down 2.6%, although the market was bolstered by a good performance from own label, taking total losses to £28.5m [Kantar Worldpanel 52 w/e 27 March 2016].
“Home baking has not been immune from range rationalisation, and the overall SKU count is down,” said Jan McKee, head of marketing at Dr Oetker. “This has meant that private label has been the biggest beneficiary.”
Dr Oetker was set to kick off a “vibrant and inspirational” £1.6m campaign to get home bakers back into the kitchen, urging them “not to worry about perfection and just ’dare to bake”, she added.
Other home baking brands are also gearing up for the return of the BBC’s GBBO to screens for series seven in August.
Premier Foods is focusing on its Paul Hollywood sweet and savoury baking mixes, which hit the market in February. A digital campaign, scheduled to launch this month across Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, will encourage consumers to ‘Bake Bold’, with tips from Hollywood on how to achieve ‘the perfect bake’.
Meanwhile, Cake Décor is rolling out online campaign Bake It Beautiful, while Divine Chocolate has enlisted former GBBO contestant Martha Collison.
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