Pampers continues to reign supreme in the branded baby category, with a firm hold on the promotional activity chart.

Last weekend the brand accounted for twice the activity of its closest rival, scoring 46% on the top five branded baby food and accessories chart. Johnson & Johnson was second with 23%.

Huggies and three babyfood brands fought for the remaining three places, with all the food brands boasting offers on their baby fruit pot ranges. With just one percentage point between them, Cow & Gate took third place with 9% of promotions, ahead of Heinz at fourth with 8%. This left Organix and Huggies in joint fifth with 7% each.

Pampers is leading the way with 54% of 2008 activity, almost double that of second-placed Johnson & Johnson. They are followed by Huggies on 9%, Cow & Gate on 5% and Heinz/Organix in joint fifth on 2%.

In 2007 the final rankings were Pampers (36%), Johnson & Johnson (29%), Huggies (21%), Heinz (9%) and Cow & Gate (2%).

There has been a shift this year away from the basic save mechanic - where consumers can make a saving by purchasing a single product - to x-for-y, which helps to drive volume sales.

Although it is still early days, in 2008 Pampers' use of x-for-y has risen to account for 70% of its activity, up from 19% usage in 2007. Following in its footsteps, Johnson & Johnson has increased its x-for-y use by 20 percentage points to 31% in 2008. Huggies has favoured x-for-y in 70% of its 2008 offers, reducing activity for bogof and save. In 2007 Heinz undertook 11% of activity using 'save' and 89% x-for-y. So far in 2008 it has only used x-for-y.

The only brand to buck the trend is Cow & Gate, which increased its save offers by 10% and reduced

x-for-y by the same amount.

The baby category overall shows bogof dropping 10 points to 18%, save falling 26 points to 19% and x-for-y increasing by 35 points to 59% of total activity.

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