Pilgrims Choice Cheddar: How to grow sales in a mature market

This paper describes the final stage in Pilgrims Choice's journey to regain its number two position in the Cheddar Cheese market, despite strong competition. The brand had been redeveloped (with positive reception by consumers) but the resulting impact on sales was not enough to turn around its fortunes. The solution therefore lay in understanding the relationship between sales, advertising and promotions and this was answered by developing an econometric model. This model changed the approach to the timing of TV activity so that it ran in parallel with promotions, rather than immediately after. As a result, the combined strategy produced annual sales of £69.4m and generated a long term profit payback of between £2.16 and £3.02 for every £1 spent