The Summer issue of Drinks Trade is out now and features one of the industry's annual must-reads: the Hottest 100 Brands Australia 2020 list.
This year's list shows that when established brands innovate and market well, they lead significant growth and create value for both the brand and the retailer.
In some categories brand names will come as no surprise, but the size of growth they are contributing just might. Then there are the newcomers and those that challenge the order of things – these are exciting and offer the opportunity to put more dollars in your till.
How did we compile the list?
The good people at IRI got the ball rolling with the best performing brands in 10 categories, searching by growth (in litres), percentage against the previous years’ volume and, when required, overlaid this with value growth.
This resulted in more than 200 brands ranked by category on performance over the previous 12 months.
The data was then passed to the ‘human element’, the experts that buy (and sell) products for thousands of stores in Australia, monitor the promotions, innovations and brand launches that work, and maybe, the ones that fail.
These Hottest 100 brands have been broken into 10 categories to give you a list of the top performing, and predicted to be, top performing brands in Australia.
Where we felt data could add value to the conversation we included it, plus a short comment from the panel that gives you an insight into the reasons behind the success.
Click here to see the brands that came out on top.
And the No.1 Hottest 100 Brand is ...
Canadian Club has taken out the Drinks Trade Hottest 100 Brand of the Year for the second year in a row.
The premium whiskey from Canada has tapped into the refreshment category with remarkable results.
According to Trent Champman, Marketing Director, Oceania at Beam Suntory, the secret that has seen Australian’s fall in love with Canadian Club FBS and the RTD is that it has successfully tapped into "beer boredom insights", positioning itself as ‘The Refreshing Alternative’ to beer - targeting beer drinkers.
"It’s enabled the brand to grow the Dark RTD category by pulling its volume from a larger volume opportunity being beer," Chapman said.
Key to its success the ‘Over Beer?’ campaign, which has been in market for close to 10 years. It was launched two years after government materially changed the alcohol tax/ excise landscape via a severe increase in the excise on RTDs.
"The ‘Over Beer?’ campaign was the result of immense pressure for marketing to work harder than it had ever had previously for a distilled spirits company," Chapman explained.
"Since then Canadian Club results have been unprecedented - double-digit growth year on year, going from a 500k case brand in 2010 with 2019 on track to delivering just short of four million cases, while expanding margins each year."
Chapman said this summer is looking to be CC’s biggest yet, with a strong media plan in place - activation in key retailers across the on and off-trade, branded execution at The Australian Open, out of home and digital presence.
While the brand is becoming an increasingly year-round performer, summer sales are particularly strong.
"CC over indexes in the summer period, outperforming all other Dark RTDs," Chapman said.
He also noted that the brand’s consumer base profile is maturing.
"Opportunity for further growth lies in continuing to recruit Young Partyers (Younger demo 18-24) and Discerning Drinkers (Older demo 35+), switching their drink of choice to CC.
"To reach our aspiration of being the biggest alcohol brand in Australia, we are nurturing CC in a way that it will cater to all Australian’s … like VB, XXXX Gold and now Great Northern, CC is fast becoming sewn into the fabric of the Australian lifestyle."
FAST FACTS
• CC RTD Trademark remains the most significant contributor to Dark RTD category MAT (delivering more than $23.8million in incremental value vs last year)
• CC RTD has the highest penetration in Dark RTD – with one in every three drinkers consuming CC, just over 500K last four weeks drinkers while beer has 7.5million in the last four weeks drinkers - showcasing the opportunity to grow even further.
• Continuing to recruit from out of category drinkers (ie beer)
• New CC Dry Zero Sugar offering is delivering incremental volume to the
CC Trademark by appealing to a broader audience, currently hold 15%
share of the sugar-free category and growing. Driving refreshment has
always been key to Canadian Club, with the health and well-being trend
this becomes even more important to the brand.
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