Coca-Cola is the “most-chosen” FMCG brand in the world for the third consecutive year, chosen roughly 5.7 billion times in the 52-year period between October 2013 and October 2014, according to the latest annual rankings [pdf] from Kantar Worldpanel. In fact, 43.4% of households purchased the brand an average of 13.4 times last year; while #2 Colgate had higher penetration among households (64.6%), it was purchased less frequently (6.4 times on average). In fact, with 19 million more shoppers last year, Colgate was the only brand bought by a majority of the world’s households.
The top brands are measured by “consumer reach points,” which measure how many households around the world are purchasing a brand (frequency) and how often (frequency).
Overall, 9 of the top 10 brands remained from last year. Dove was the new entrant in this latest report, cracking the top 10 for the first time (#9), chosen 6% more times year-over-year and adding 14 million new shoppers to its global base. That was the fifth-best result in terms of new shoppers among the top 11,000 brands measured, behind only Colgate (+19 million), Maggi (+18 million), Lay’s (+17 million) and Vim (+15 million).
Interestingly, there was an equal split in growth among the 11,000 brands examined, with half growing their CRPs and half seeing them decline. With 250 billion FMCG shopper decisions being made last year – roughly consistent with the year before – the analysts note that winning brands (which saw overall CRP growth of 9.8%) may have grown at the expense of declining products (which saw an overall drop of 8.3% in CRPs). Among the growing brands, three-quarters saw their success due to increasing penetration (growing their shopper base).
In other interesting study results:
- Only 2% of the brands analyzed are purchased by more than 80% of a country’s shoppers, indicating room for growth even for successful brands;
- Consumers are proving “increasingly responsive to brands… that show a social purpose through their marketing and offer a gateway to healthier lifestyles;”
- Downy was the fastest-riser in terms of CRP growth, with a 22.8% increase year-over-year;
- Coca-Cola was the top brand in 8 countries, including the US; and
- On average, top brands reach 85% of shoppers in their country, but that is a level that only 1% of FMCG brands across the world can boast.
About the Data: The study describes its methodology as follows:
“Kantar Worldpanel’s Brand Footprint is based on research from 63% of the global population; a total of 956 million households across 35 countries, and 68% of the global GDP. The complete ranking analyses 11,000 brands and 250 billion shopping decisions. Kantar Worldpanel tracks 200 FMCG categories around the world across the beverages, food, health and beauty, homecare, alcoholic drinks, confectionery and nappies sectors.
The ranking is based on an innovative metric created by Kantar Worldpanel called Consumer Reach Points, which measures every time a consumer chooses a brand. The data for this year’s ranking was collected over the 52 week period between October 2013 and October 2014. All data relates to purchases that are brought into the home.”
