The PromoNow Insights team took to 3 local Co-ops to bring a broader look across their estate, and Co-op’s in-store point-of-sale materials and the on-pack promotions stocked for February and March. From Valentine’s, Mother’s Day, and Easter – retailers, including Co-op, are full of promotions and opportunities for promotional displays. Two of the Co-ops were Co-op Food, featuring the green logo whilst the final one featured the more local, blue clover logo.
There were a total of 20 promotions spotted across all 3 stores, all in the food and drinks category, 7 of which the insights team has not covered in an article. Some promotions such as Ambrosia’s ‘Win Minions of Prizes’ text to win, and Costa Coffee’s ‘Win 1000s of Tasty Prizes’ prize draw were still on shop shelves despite the promotional period ending some time ago.
Promotional spaces in larger Co-op stores can start from £382 per week, with the retailer holding a strong reputation for values in community and fair trade, brands may find it beneficial to feature their promotion at Co-op to build and emphasise a brand’s values and beliefs to customers.
For February and March, Co-op had many Easter-based promotional materials spanning across all 3 retail stores, featuring the same style and type, used to drive foot traffic to certain seasonal aisles of the store.
As a whole, many shelf-barkers promoted the Co-op membership card, this was a consistent occurrence throughout all 3 Co-ops the insights team visited.
With the nearing Easter season, and the recently passed Mother’s Day, we saw quite a few different displays in the Co-ops, including aisle fins, specifically advertising current promotions. For example, Thornton’s shelf stopper.
Although the boxes themselves didn't have on-pack designs, the promotional display garnered enough attention to them. In some ways, for a no-purchase-necessary promotion, a brand doesn’t necessarily need an on-pack design. Yes, it may garner more shopper attention but depending on the brand budget, it may not be a priority, especially if sales are not the main goal of a brand’s promotion. Arguably, occupying retailer space may be more effective for some brands and their objectives for promotions.
FSDUs were also frequently populated across all 3 Co-ops, they were all fairly similar in terms of the products and brands being featured but there were a few that appeared in one while not in the other.
These display units were placed near the ends of aisles and were often accompanied by other displays such as dump bins. This particular placement beside shelves makes for a good addition to end-cap displays, being a key point-of-sale area which has a lot of shopper footfall.
As seen in the simple diagram below, areas on the end of aisles tend to have more traction and are more likely to capture shopper attention. Of course, the actual free-standing display units need to be in itself, attractive and eye-catching to shoppers - good positioning and placement in retail is only half the story to achieve shopper activation.
SRPs like display boxes are a good way to capture the busy shopper’s attention, providing a break in the shelves that calls out to the consumer. It’s a good way to highlight promotional products from non-promotional and day-to-day versions of the product, making it more convenient and easier for shoppers to find and spot brand promotions.
The Co-op stores had many display boxes but those specifically highlighting brand promotions were a bit more uncommon to find.
Confectionary products tended to have smaller display boxes and were a bit more common to see, whilst family-sized products or products that were already quite large and in cardboard box packaging, tended to be stocked individually on shelves, perhaps as a space-saving tactic.
Previously, floor decals weren’t a display material often spotted by the PromoNow insights team. The displays didn’t usually make their appearance in Co-op retailers but for Easter, Co-op has included seasonally appropriate floor decals to highlight the aisles, with a selection of products, specially curated for Easter.
These bin displays were scattered throughout all the Co-op stores visited and tend to stay that way all year round, although, during the insight team’s visits, the corresponding signs were based on the Easter season. This kind of point-of-sale material is a great way to highlight products, especially for discounted goods or products with good value for money. However, it can also be used to simply highlight the price of a good, making the displayed goods simply feel like it’s discounted or at a lower price enticing and incentivising purchase - combine that with an activation and you’ve a winning formula
Co-op does sometimes hold competitions including text-to-win promotions. There has been quite an extensive and impressive list of promotions, often limited to Co-op members, i.e. membership card holders. For example, a recent one is with Ever Ground, for the chance to win 2 festival tickets. However, the competitions page for Co-op lacks a record of past or current promotions which can make finding these competitions difficult and less accessible to the average busy shopper.
A common theme through these promotions was the focus on family, likely due to the seasonal occasions like Mother’s Day and Easter being family-focused celebrations and events.
As mentioned previously, we saw 7 promotions not yet spotted in retailers, of course, they’re not all exclusive to Co-op but they were first spotted in Co-Op before any other insight trip done by PromoNow’s team.
Placed on the upper shelves of the Co-op aisles, this promotion by Cadbury has been running since February 2024. With 200 winning packs and some serious cash prizes incentivising shoppers to join in and anticipate opening a winning pack.
Using a light-hearted and self-referential name, Cadbury has hit store shelves with a simple but playful on-pack promotion, with 200 total ‘crossed fingers’ and winning tickets hidden in promotional packs, this instant win gets shoppers excited, purchasing and indulging in the four core flavours of Cadbury fingers’ range (Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk Orange, White, and Bournville). Cadbury has tuned into their established emotional connection as the heart of fun shared family moments.
This promotion is built in partnership with the digital agency, PromoVeritas which supervises the distribution of winning packs and prize fulfilment.
Other than a promotion on-pack design, this promotion has also been supported by POS fixtures as well as out-of-home (OOH) advertising which is a following Mondelez’s principle set of activities laid out in their 2022 Annual Report under ‘Distribution and Marketing’, being the first and last of 3 principles, “consumer marketing and advertising including digital and social media, on-air, outdoor and other product promotions” as well as “trade promotions to support price features, displays and other merchandising of our [Mondelez’s] products by our [their] customers.”
In the summer of 2023, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners helped Costa Coffee launch their first on-pack promotion for its ready-to-drink range the promotion ran from the 26th of June to the 20th of September 2023. Along with the on-pack promotion, there was a marketing campaign which included social media content, out-of-home (OOH) advertising, sampling, and partnerships in support of the summer campaign.
Independent convenience retailers were also given the chance to win cash for themselves as well as for a good local cause as a celebration of Costa’s first on-pack promotion.
Retailers were also incentivised to join the promotional fray when they either purchased cases of Costa or requested point-of-sale (POS) kits on my.CCEP.com and displayed them being used alongside key Costa lines.
Kinder is beloved by families, children, and adults alike. The chocolate brand by Ferreo greets the Easter season and is holding a promotion in collaboration with Tonies to provide winners with 50 Toniesboxes, with an interactive and engaging promotion that targets the younger demographic of their audience. Found at kinderbuildastory.com, participants can make their entry and also try their Natoons’ ‘Build A Story’ function which supports the primary promotion. This activation is intended to be experienced by both the parent/guardian and the child, with designs featuring the cast of Natoons animal toys and colourful nature motifs. By facilitating this moment, Kinder relies on the emotional connection and fun of engaging to also include their brand, fostering a brand relationship that is both positive and memorable.
This promotion and partnership also extends outside the UK with slight variations, for example in 2023 Germany had a similar promotion for the chance to win Tonisboxes across several different Kinder Surprise ranges, including their Natoons product line as well.
This focus on family is nothing new for Kinder and the brand continues to keenly target its audience of families and children with each activation.
Cadbury reappears on this list but with a more Easter and family-focused promotion. Similarly, Mr Kipling also runs the same promotion on its range of products. Although the ‘fingers crossed’ was held by Mondelez and usually is for most promotions, this particular promotion is being run by Premier Foods. The promotion is being run on the Mr Kipling product lines so it’s reasonable that, Premier Foods who use the Cadbury trademark for cake products such as mini rolls, mini egg cakes, and creme egg cakes also takes control and runs this promotion on its Cadbury cakes as well.
This activation and promotion is in support of OREO’s ‘Chase Playfulness’ tagline with the opportunity to win prizes by using the #ChasePlayfulness with their Oreo x Pac-Man cookies. The promotion is also accompanied by promotional packs and on-pack designs.
By partnering with Pac-Man, Oreo has dialled in on the ‘nostalgia factor’ and encourages participants to try the gamified promotion and associate the two brands together.
Oreo and Pac-Man are renowned for their commitment to playfulness, which makes it a seamless collaboration. Both brands appeal to all generations and we can’t wait to see families and friends coming together to enjoy Oreo cookies while playing Pac-Man games for fun and bonding moments.
– Aadil Tayouga
The gamified promotion is a replica of Pac-Man accompanied by Oreo’s special-print cookies and brings back the simple arcade-style gaming experience on mobile. With a leaderboard and addictive gameplay, it encourages participants to engage for longer and enthusiastically with the campaign.
Collaborating with the 2024 release of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Walkers has established an on-pack promotion across their Monster Munch, Quavers, Squares, and Wotsits product lines.
This promotion revisits Walkers and Sony Pictures’ partnership in 2021 for Ghostbusters: Afterlife where a similar promotion took place where the promotional packaging featured Mini-Pufts.
The Red Bull Soapbox Race is an annual event in which fans gather to join the race or eagerly spectate. This activation by Red Bull embraces the brand’s thrill-seeking reputation. By building the anticipation leading up to the race and encouraging active participation, engaging the audience’s creativity, time, and headspace with this event will captivate customers and their loyalty to the brand.
The activation was accompanied by POS material such as FSDUs with an accompanying QR code, rallying shoppers to get involved.
With the Promotions Seen series, the insight teams have seen and recorded many on-pack promotions and have researched each extensively, we encourage you to read our other articles if you’re interested in any of the promotions below and be the first to know about them by following our LinkedIn page.
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