Category Captain: Margarine: Unilever

As category captain in the margarine segment, Unilever is making sure shoppers continue to encounter exciting changes. Its new Country Crock VTF flavored spreads are driving incremental margarine purchase occasions and helping to drive sales of host foods such as bakery items.

Year to date, Country Crock flavored spreads sales have increased more than 25 percent. The spreads, which include Honey and two rotating flavors, Cinnamon and Pumpkin Spice, are not only bringing new users to the Country Crock brand, but are also incremental to the margarine category. An estimated 30 percent of total volume has been incremental, driving market development in the category.

Unilever has supported the new spreads with on-pack usage ideas, digital and social media marketing, coupons, and merchandising shippers with recipe tearpads.

Additionally, Unilever has embarked on a new customer facing strategy that’s helping to re-segment the category based on how shoppers view it, as opposed to segmentation based on product form. This segmentation and resulting merchandising flow/POGs are currently in the process of being implemented in the marketplace.