The top five categories for branded promotional activity reflect the

legacy of the festive season. The data was collected on 30-31 December and shows that deals on the usual

Christmas goodies dominated events.

The alcohol category started

December in first place and has steadily increased its lead throughout, ending the year with an amazing 33% of featured space across all retailers. Smirnoff has been the most consistent spirits brand, and last week overtook Carlsberg with an increase of 7%.

Coca-Cola's lead of the soft drinks category was overtaken for the first time by Schweppes brands.

Across all five retailers, Schweppes had offers on a range of 1-litre mixers, 2-litre lemonade and its 150ml Schweppes tonic water cans.

The primary featured space was gondola ends with both x-for-y and buy-one-get-one-free mechanics being used by Schweppes.

Coca-Cola had offers in all retailers except Somerfield (which reduced the space allocated to Coke brands overall), with all offers using the x-for-y mechanic.

Health, beauty and baby's primary promoters were Olay with 10%, Radox, Aquafresh and Palmolive with 8% each and Colgate in fifth place with 6%.

Olay had offers in Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's all favouring the save mechanic with the preferred display type used being ladder racks.

Biscuits and cakes made it into both the own label and branded activity chart, in fifth place in both charts with 7%. Again, not surprisingly, the majority of offers for this category were for collection boxes/tins and crackers rather than individual packs of biscuits or cakes.

McVitie's took top spot with 16% of activity, Fox's had 15%, Cadbury's is third with 13%, Jacob's was fourth with 11% and Royal Edinburgh Shortbread took fifth place with 8%. Sainsbury's was the leading retailer for own label in this category.

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