10 outstanding success stories of collaboration exemplifying how brands and retailers can create a winning playbook by leveraging each other’s capabilities and resources
By collaborating, brands and retailers can reach out to new customers and expand their reach in the market. Retailers can help brands distribute their products more effectively by leveraging their existing distribution networks. Brands can benefit from retailers’ expertise and resources, such as data analytics and omnichannel capabilities, to enhance their operations and offerings. Together, they can collaborate on marketing and promotional activities to drive sales and raise brand awareness besides helping each other to tap into new revenue streams, reduce costs, and improve overall profitability.
We bring you 10 outstanding success stories of collaboration between food and FMCG brands and retailers in building new consumption/ product categories or transforming a traditional category with innovation.
Unilever and Spencer’s bring the fun back in the mayonnaise category with great results
From just about 150 shoppers engaging with the mayonnaise category on a daily basis, the numbers jumped to over 135000 consumers per day, average bill value moved up significantly, and Hellmann’s share of the mayonnaise category shot up to 15% from a low of 4%.
This story of collaboration between Unilever’s Hellmann’s Mayonnaise and Spencer’s Retail is about how such partnerships can co-create joyful experiences for shoppers and bring back the joys of offline shopping. Once the pandemic retreated, shoppers began coming back to the store and they wanted to spend more time in-store. With footfalls returning, brands and retailers too were excited to experiment something new that could keep shoppers engaged and interested.
To induce and indulge shoppers more, internationally famous Hellmann’s Mayonnaise wanted to get in on the act to create some new and engaging experiences for its consumers. But first, they went back to their consumer studies to figure out more clearly how consumers were interacting with the category and what could be done to rev up category engagement.
Once the brand’s team went down the rabbit hole looking for more details on the category and its consumption pattern, they came across three key learnings or findings: Mayonnaise remained an aspirational category for most consumers in India; the category was stuck with low consumer penetration; and consumer interaction with the product was limited to modern settings such as in a restaurant or café. “The task before us looked clearly cut out. We had to first demystify the product and the category for the consumers. If that could be achieved, consumers would come to discover the many appealing facets of the product and would be inspired to recreate mayonnaise recipes at their homes. After all, the recipes are all easy to make, and they are fun to eat, especially for fussy eaters like kids. The challenge, therefore, was to integrate the product into the everyday recipes of people and to make it easy for moms to prepare mayonnaise-based recipes and snacks for their kids,” says Urvi Nerurkar, key account manager, modern trade –Unilever.
Mayonnaise is mostly treated as a fun product with many recreational uses and gets consumed by friends and families when hanging out together. The brand, therefore, was keen on bringing the fun element associated with the product back, especially in such social settings such as shopping when shoppers are mostly with their friends and families.
Elements of the Collaboration
Armed with these insights, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise set out to create a premium experience for shoppers at stores and it found a perfect retail partner in Spencer’s Retail, which consumers identify with as being a premium retailer in the country. It also has a certain set of stores that cater to niche food segments and special consumer cohorts.
“At our stores that sell foods belonging to niche categories, about 12% of sales come from these niche segments in the overall processed foods category. For this category belonging to the niche food segment, our effort has always been to design such plans that could engage more customers for the category. In Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, we spotted a brand that has the experience of designing and creating the kind of engagement that we were looking to bring into this category,” says Anand Ghosh, deputy general manager, Spencer’s Retail.
Some 15 select Spencer’s Retail stores across three geographies were chosen for running the engagement program. A customized menu with a live bakery section was introduced at these stores. Spencer’s has an “Epicuisine” section that stocks a variety of fine foods, an appropriate department for Hellmann’s to introduce its menu and carry out it branding activities.
The brand also brought in products like burgers and other vegetarian foods so as to bust the myth that mayonnaise is mostly used for non-vegetarian food. “We also launched our sampling activity for mayonnaise by offering the shoppers the recipes from our customized menu.
Outcome
“By the time the promotion came to a close, we were interacting with more than 1 lakh consumers per day and we were able to carry out our branding across multiple touch points, which allowed us to introduce the brand to a diverse base of shoppers. In the end, our bill penetration had risen 2.3X, sales zoomed, the brand’s contribution to the mayonnaise category went up significantly and Hellmann’s succeeded in premiumizing the mayonnaise category,” says Urvi.
When the plan with Hellmann’s Mayonnaise kicked off at the stores, there were just about 150 shoppers engaging with the mayonnaise category on a daily basis. The numbers jumped to over 1,35,000 consumers per day who came forward to interact with the category at the selected Spencer’s stores. Every day, there were new shoppers at these stores who are happy to taste the product and learn about the recipes that could be prepared with it.
“As a result, our Average Bill Value has gone up significantly. With the ABV moving up, the category’s share of overall sales has shown an appreciable upward spiral. When we started, Hellmann’s share of the category was about 4%, which shot up to 15% before stabilizing around 12%, which is a normal phenomenon in retailing. It means that the trials we did with the consumers have been successful and the stabilization of the category’s share points to the fact that consumers are coming back, they are staying with the category and are making repeat purchases,” says Anand.
While the collaboration between Spencer’s and Unilever’s Hellmann’s was as good as it lasted, the future of mayonnaise as a category looks bright with increasing numbers of youngsters turning to the product and finding it a healthier replacement to butter.
