Resurgent Tesco is no longer being outmuscled on the advertising front

Normal service has been resumed among the UK’s biggest retail and fmcg advertisers. As well as being out-thought, Tesco was outmuscled by the discounters on the advertising front for a number of years. Now the UK’s biggest retailer has got back to spending big on advertising, overtaking spend versus its grocery rivals (only McDonald’s among high street operators is spending more) for the first time since 2010.

The extra spend reflects its improved performance and increased confidence. After years of bad news and falling sales, it’s got positive things to say, whether through its ‘Food Love Stories’ or its reinvention of Every Little Helps, cleverly linked to small but meaningful improvements in its offer.

It’s a similar story with Coca-Cola. The world’s biggest brand has been under constant attack in the war on sugar, amid growing clamour over the simultaneous impact it’s having on the environment through single-use plastic. But it’s topped our fmcg rankings for the first time since 2012 (up from 10th last year).

This again demonstrates increased confidence in its story, linked to a more convincing strategy. As we saw in last week’s ranking of Britain’s Biggest Brands, Coca-Cola has adopted a masterbrand approach that emphasises it has a drink for different tastes. But the most crucial decision was dropping Coke Life and focusing more time, effort and spend on Coke Zero, after its research found many customers did not realise that the Zero stood for zero sugar. (Proof of why you have to spend a lot of money on advertising to get your point across.)

With the Soft Drinks Industry Levy kicking in from this week, that investment has already paid dividends, with sales of the renamed Coca-Cola Zero Sugar up £40m and the overall brand up 3.4%. And despite the last remaining bottles and cans of Irn-Bru selling on eBay for extortionate sums, AG Barr has also reported improved sales due to zero or low-cal innovation.

The message is clear: if the levy is a test of the nation’s taste buds versus the skills of the soft drinks industry’s R&D teams, it’s one in which advertising will play an important role too.