Halloween is an important time of year in the world of sweets and confectionary, because the demand for such products is increased due to trick or treating and Halloween parties. However, Halloween during a global pandemic meant Haribo needed to rethink and adapt their approach during 2020.
With Logobrand’s help, Haribo were able to utilise a sophisticated four-phase approach throughout October and in the lead-up to Halloween, designed to maximise compliance, sales and ensure an effective use of the budget.
Haribo are a German confectionery company, founded by Hans Riegel Sr in 1922. One of their first products came in the form of little gummy bears, called Gummibärchen. Over the years, Haribo’s confectionary has gradually evolved into what we know them as today, combining incredible taste with creativity.
As a family business in its third generation, Haribo celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2020 and their products are currently available in more than 100 countries around the world.
As a confectionary manufacturer, Halloween is one of the key trading periods and, in Haribo’s case, is a time of year that is more important and potentially profitable than Christmas.
In any physical shopping venue, space is at a premium with brands constantly competing for shoppers’ attention. Having invested significantly in feature space, seasonal products and promotions across the grocery estate, Haribo needed to make sure their range of products made it into as many trick or treat baskets as possible, and that their products caught as many eyes of children and parents as they could.
In the midst of a global pandemic with less customers visiting physical stores, it was accepted there would be fewer opportunities in 2020 to drive stock through to customers. Because of this, meticulous planning and targeted activation would be more key than ever before.
The Haribo and Logobrand teams started planning early to ensure the best-in-class execution possible. A strategy was agreed that included a four-phase approach throughout October, designed to maximise compliance, sales and ensure an effective use of the available budget.
Phase one involved ensuring that system stocks were correct, checking that allocations would be sent correctly on time, and a swift execution of planned early activations.
Phase two was designed to ensure compliance of key seasonal promotions and drive stock on to the shop floor, selecting stores using the in-house systems to identify stores with availability issues or excess stock of seasonal lines.
Phase three became known as ‘push’ week and was set to be an incredibly busy time. Full estate coverage and time in-store was extended due to the number of planned feature locations. This also gave the in-store team more time to relocate stock from the warehouse to the shop floor.
Phase four was the final push, which meant ensuring all Halloween specific stock was on the shop floor, ready for shoppers to purchase.
Haribo were able to work with its retailer customers and ensure store lists for all features were available. This meant Logobrand could tailor each questionnaire at store level to ensure the field team would only spend time on investigating and fixing what they knew was planned, driving efficiency and improving compliance.
The use of retailer EPOS throughout the campaign meant Logobrand could push and promote the latest ranges, sales and stock information to the in-store team, and course correct where necessary throughout the campaign.
Due to the hard work of both the Logobrand and Haribo teams, Haribo achieved their best-ever Halloween activation, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The average activation compliance increased massively compared to 2019:
The ‘final push’ week was an overall huge success, and the additional time beforehand provided sufficient resource to ensure compliance at feature locations did not drop ahead of the final push in phase four.
‘Logobrand are fantastic at what they do utilising data, understanding our business objective and formalising a plan to execute. They are a trusted partner for Field Merchandising with Haribo and we have enjoyed a fantastic relationship with the team’ – Nick Brown, Sales Operations Manager Haribo.
After a successful Halloween campaign, Logobrand are incredibly excited to continue our work with Haribo, and we look forward to achieving even more impressive results in the future. This case study showcases how it is entirely possible to overcome the obstacles caused by the coronavirus pandemic for the retail and confectionary industry.
