Older brands are putting on a youthful face to keep up with the bright young things in the market. Lisa Riley reports
It has been a busy year for the golden oldies' of the biscuit and cake market, with a number of the big players spending heavily on advertising and modifying old favourites in an attempt to compete with the plethora of new offerings.
Burton's Foods has put a lot of emphasis on driving its more established brands such as Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels.
"We have started to do a lot more creative work with consumers and with retailers about how to rejuvenate the biscuit market as a whole, and indeed, the good old favourites," says marketing director at Burton's Foods Tony Camp.
"Three to four years ago the biscuit market was pretty boring and stable dominated by products such as digestives, fully coated biscuits and cookies. It was all manufacturer-driven and all about filling up production lines. There was very little expenditure on television advertising, but this has all changed now, " says Camp.
The new approach has helped the survival of the older brands, according to Camp.
Wagon Wheels, which accounts for about 5.9% of the chocolate biscuit bar market and is worth about £25.4m [TNS 52 w/e September 15], was relaunched and subsequently turned its fortunes around, says Camp. "We have done a lot of work on improving the quality to try to find a better taste and update the product and packaging. As a result the brand has grown ahead of the category since the relaunch," he says.
To further drive growth Burton's has done a deal with TV football programme On the Ball to sponsor the programme for the next six months.
Not to be left out, children's favourite Jammie Dodgers was, in addition to other advertising, supported by a £2m five-week TV campaign for a Jam Slam trading card promotion across Jammie Dodgers Minis. Camp says it helped to keep the brand alive and to bring new users to the category as well as bringing old consumers back.
The age-old biscuit favourites also aimed for a wider audience with the launch of the resealable Tear and Share packaging pouches which helped the brands regain ground.
"When you get the packaging, the product and the price right, you get incremental sales," says Camp. "And so Tear and Share has added about £3m in incremental sales to Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels combined, and these have been out for only seven months, so they are not yet in full distribution."
Fox's spent £4m on a marketing campaign for its premium chocolate biscuit bar brand Echo. The campaign included TV and sampling. A new variation of the popular chocolate biscuit bar was also launched  Honeycomb Echo. As a result, the brand grew by 26% to £10.6m [TNS 52 w/e August].
"Together with the launch of new Honeycomb Echo we have experienced very high growth year-on-year," says customer marketing controller Paul Garner. "A key factor is the impressive repeat purchase rate of 41%," he adds.
Manor Bakeries invested heavily in Mr Kipling which it claims is the largest UK cake brand, focusing on favourite small cakes for the family. After its relaunch in February last year Manor Bakeries spent £3m on advertising, sustaining a long TV presence.
Another old favourite, Jaffa Cakes, had an extra boost as the brand was used as part of England's World Cup bid.
On top of this McVitie's Cake Company also dug deep into its pockets, investing £5m on a new advertising campaign for the brand which started at the end of July, capitalising on the football theme.
"The Jaffa Cakes success story gets better by the day, with sales continuing to soar  up 28%," says McVitie's sales director Martin Perkin.
Overall sales of the brand were also helped by the launch of Jaffa Cakes Mini Rolls which the cake company says are already performing "fantastically" and have helped create new interest in the brand as a whole.
So, it seems that with the competition hotting up within the cake and biscuit market, manufacturers have woken up to the fact that they can not rest on their laurels if they want to keep the good old favourites alive, and indeed increase sales. So far so good.
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It has been a busy year for the golden oldies' of the biscuit and cake market, with a number of the big players spending heavily on advertising and modifying old favourites in an attempt to compete with the plethora of new offerings.
Burton's Foods has put a lot of emphasis on driving its more established brands such as Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels.
"We have started to do a lot more creative work with consumers and with retailers about how to rejuvenate the biscuit market as a whole, and indeed, the good old favourites," says marketing director at Burton's Foods Tony Camp.
"Three to four years ago the biscuit market was pretty boring and stable dominated by products such as digestives, fully coated biscuits and cookies. It was all manufacturer-driven and all about filling up production lines. There was very little expenditure on television advertising, but this has all changed now, " says Camp.
The new approach has helped the survival of the older brands, according to Camp.
Wagon Wheels, which accounts for about 5.9% of the chocolate biscuit bar market and is worth about £25.4m [TNS 52 w/e September 15], was relaunched and subsequently turned its fortunes around, says Camp. "We have done a lot of work on improving the quality to try to find a better taste and update the product and packaging. As a result the brand has grown ahead of the category since the relaunch," he says.
To further drive growth Burton's has done a deal with TV football programme On the Ball to sponsor the programme for the next six months.
Not to be left out, children's favourite Jammie Dodgers was, in addition to other advertising, supported by a £2m five-week TV campaign for a Jam Slam trading card promotion across Jammie Dodgers Minis. Camp says it helped to keep the brand alive and to bring new users to the category as well as bringing old consumers back.
The age-old biscuit favourites also aimed for a wider audience with the launch of the resealable Tear and Share packaging pouches which helped the brands regain ground.
"When you get the packaging, the product and the price right, you get incremental sales," says Camp. "And so Tear and Share has added about £3m in incremental sales to Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels combined, and these have been out for only seven months, so they are not yet in full distribution."
Fox's spent £4m on a marketing campaign for its premium chocolate biscuit bar brand Echo. The campaign included TV and sampling. A new variation of the popular chocolate biscuit bar was also launched  Honeycomb Echo. As a result, the brand grew by 26% to £10.6m [TNS 52 w/e August].
"Together with the launch of new Honeycomb Echo we have experienced very high growth year-on-year," says customer marketing controller Paul Garner. "A key factor is the impressive repeat purchase rate of 41%," he adds.
Manor Bakeries invested heavily in Mr Kipling which it claims is the largest UK cake brand, focusing on favourite small cakes for the family. After its relaunch in February last year Manor Bakeries spent £3m on advertising, sustaining a long TV presence.
Another old favourite, Jaffa Cakes, had an extra boost as the brand was used as part of England's World Cup bid.
On top of this McVitie's Cake Company also dug deep into its pockets, investing £5m on a new advertising campaign for the brand which started at the end of July, capitalising on the football theme.
"The Jaffa Cakes success story gets better by the day, with sales continuing to soar  up 28%," says McVitie's sales director Martin Perkin.
Overall sales of the brand were also helped by the launch of Jaffa Cakes Mini Rolls which the cake company says are already performing "fantastically" and have helped create new interest in the brand as a whole.
So, it seems that with the competition hotting up within the cake and biscuit market, manufacturers have woken up to the fact that they can not rest on their laurels if they want to keep the good old favourites alive, and indeed increase sales. So far so good.
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