A Thorough Analysis of Past Promotions Led to a Smarter Allocation of Future Trade Promotion Investment at Midsona
A Thorough Analysis of Past Promotions Led to a Smarter Allocation of Future Trade Promotion Investment at Midsona
An in-depth analysis of previous trade promotions utilizing AI-based sales modeling helped Midsona identify the best-performing campaign types. This new insight allows them to allocate their future trade promotion investments more effectively within the Swedish grocery chain ICA.
Planning and executing trade promotions at Midsona were previously focused on individual customers, with each key account manager making campaign planning based on their own customers’ needs. The structural changes at Midsona are moving towards a more comprehensive approach. In order to develop and grow in the Nordics, promotion planning needs to start from understanding both the category needs and brand needs, and where all the channels would be considered simultaneously. “We need to be looking at the whole market and category. We do not want to have promotions competing against each other. Instead of repeating the campaigns from previous years, our promotional planning for 2023 needs to know what outcome our campaigns should be driving, whether it is volume, loyalty, or penetration." says Jesper Eliasson, Business Manager at Midsona Sverige.
Midsona has been looking for ways to improve data-driven decision-making, especially, to evaluate campaign effectiveness. The cooperation with Analyse² was kicked off with an analyses project, where our Analyse² team helped Midsona to craft a rigorous understanding of the best-performing tactics for each channel within ICA. The analysis has been focused on the corn and rice cake category, where Midsona’s brand Friggs is well established. This is also their most significant category regarding trade promotions, as promotions have the possibility to drive exceptionally large volumes.
The analysis, which relied on AI-based baseline sales modeling, helped to recognize the true impact of different promotional tactics across ICA. “We saw a big variation between different kinds of campaigns and different formats. An important lesson was to recognize the chains that perform the best and the tactics and campaign spaces that should not be used going forward.” Eliasson says.“
“The analysis gave us really good insight about how to divide our marketing investment within ICA” Jonas Wistrand, Customer Marketing Manager confirms.
This analysis project between Midsona and Analyse² was a part of the A² Trade Promotion testing and evaluation process which will continue later this year. The tools and programs Midsona has previously used have relied on each tool’s respective data sources and thus have been lacking in the ability to present a full-market view from all retailers. "It's fantastic to see how A² Trade Promotion brings all the data to the same tool making it possible to combine all available insights,” says Wistrand.
“We have also been impressed how A² Trade Promotion explains all the KPIs in a logical and transparent way and has all the key elements that are needed to discover incremental sales and campaign uplift for different activities.” Eliasson adds.
One clear benefit of a shared solution, which Eliasson also highlighted, is that it enables the whole team to think in the same way, to use the same terminology, and to have the same metrics and framework for analyzing the outcome. Even if the available data would not be on the same granular level for all categories, having a shared method for drawing conclusions and measuring results is a clear advantage.
“We want to be able to develop and sharpen the dialogue with our customers and have a better insight about what brings the best commercial outcome for the category. This valuable insight is the perfect way to get closer to them and is highly relevant for our Category Management team.” Wistrand concludes.
Midsona develops, manufactures, and markets products that make it easier for people to live a healthier life. The Group is a leader in the Nordic region in organic and plant-based food, health food and consumer health products, with the vision of becoming one of the leaders in Europe. A few of their most known grocery store brands are Friggs, Earth Control, and Gainomax.