Marketing services to bring ideas to market
I've been writing Marston's Premium Bottled Ale (PBA) report since 2009. When we created the report, it was to try and gain more profile for a category that was very much hiding it's light under a bushel, with the majority of retailers not paying much attention to it.
After another five years of continuous double digit growth in both value and volume, through the worst economic conditions seen for several generations, producing this year's report feels like the category is finally receiving the attention it deserves.
The shelf space given to PBAs by retailers has risen, the category continues to recruit new shoppers (over 500,000 in the last year) and the value of the category is forecast to more than double in the next five years. This would take the value of the category to be worth over £1bn by 2020.
In the report you'll find an overview of the trends and innovation shaping the category, a snapshot of market & key brand performance, along with retailer shares and recommendations on merchandising and maintaining shopper engagement. All analysis and insight is drawn from independent market data (IRI, Kantar, BBPA ) and Marston's own annual shopper and drinker survey.
It's deliberately designed with brief, punchy & recommendation led copy and an info graphic style layout to provide the perfect reference guide for buying teams to develop their PBA category. Over the years it has provided a tool for Marston's to demonstrate their category expertise and investment in consumer & shopper insight to their retail customers.
Producing these category reports is a major undertaking and Thom Wilkes, Marston's Category Manager, Carl Middleton, Marston's Head of Take Home and myself have all lost a fair bit of our lives to this project in recent weeks, but the investment does pay off in customer engagement. Download it and see for yourself (below) and let me know what you think.
If you're a brand owner or category partner looking to demonstrate your category credentials, a similar report is great way to establish & maintain it. If you're interested in developing a similar report, drop me a line and I can help you to bring it to market.
Enjoy the read
Justin
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