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GROWERS DRY CIDER
New Product Promotional Campaign
OBJECTIVES
Growers Dry Cider is Canada’s preeminent Apple Cider producer since being established in 1927. The British brewery interests of early Canada forbid sales in central and Francophone Canada but the beverage remained popular in British Columbia experiencing reasonable growth married with the population. Sales of the product would bubble coincident with labour disputes within the brewing industry but return to previous levels as soon as the beer was back “on tap”. Overall the distilled beverages market has been on the decline and with that so has the propensity for continued organic growth of the Growers ciders. The objective was to maintain or grow the year over year sales volumes.
“I am trying to do my final pass at budgeting for this year and it’s the smallest budget I have ever had (it squeaks!)”
Cheers, Chris P.
Brand Manager, Refreshment Beverages
SOLUTION
Understanding that the overall markets sales volume was declining, Growers Dry Cider required a focused effort to not only maintain current sales volumes but to recruit fresh Growers consumers from other brands within the market segment.
Given that the product retails shoulder to shoulder with most other alcoholic beverages it was also important to recruit grazing of the product by consumers not yet exposed to hard ciders.
Growers Dry Cider is decidedly refreshing, all natural, orchard crisp, British Columbia proud beverages. Leveraging these attributes all point of purchase communications would include images of ice, blue sky, and dew spritzed fruit varietals. The brand would resonate with this visual language on all promotions consistently regardless of the thrust of a given campaign.
On a limited budget Scribblers’ Club worked within the confines of BCLBD and other western retail channels with existing point of purchase practices. Every promotional item was designed for easy implementation.
In addition to the Growers branded items Scribblers’ Club engaged the support of like minded “outdoorsy, social, adventurous” partners for cross promotional contest sponsorships. The first year promoted ROOTS retail shopping sprees, followed by Hydra Kayaks, Yamaha Scooters, Houseboat Adventures, and TAB Trailer giveaways. The in-store materials included: campaign branded counter/shelf ballot pads, neck hangers, large and smaller corrugate posters and danglers, 3D die cut shelf talkers, cooler shelf strips, window clings and pricer cards. At times, new flavour product launches ran side by side with contesting which would completely envelope a store with Growers presence.
RESULTS
The first years introduction of the ROOTS sponsorship and other in-store point of purchase support realized a reported 11% increase in same store sales volumes. On that success the annual campaigns grew slightly in size with prizing expenses between five and ten thousand dollars annually. With this prizing expenditures consistency and continued in-store point of purchase support the reported sales volumes have increased between twelve and seventeen percent year over year. This is a dramatic result given the nominal costs to execute and the overall declining market segment.
FEEDBACK
Continued sales volume increases have enabled Growers Dry Cider to maintain a growing market share for several years. That growth has enabled the brand to pursue and confidently support new flavour initiatives almost annually. All in-store marketing support is kept dead simple to implement ensuring retailers take advantage of the cased point of purchase material. The increased presence sponsorships helped pave the way for listings with Intrawest’s Whistler Blackcomb resort among others.
“As a brand, Growers was up 9% in case volumes this season in a static category and a region that had mediocre weather! For July, when the Vino contest ran, we were up 9.8%! The material/promo Scribblers created was excellent! Great job!”
Kelly K.
Brand Manager, Refreshment Beverages
