Back-to-school season sparks promo spike

There is a sharp spike in cough-cold promotion across retail circulars in the back-to-school season, according to an analysis of circular retail promotions provided by ECRM, as moms prepare their families for the inevitable season of sniffles and sneezes with the coming school year. Reckitt Benckiser runs the most ads in these circulars in support of its cough-cold brands, with a share of 17.2% of all ads, followed by Procter & Gamble (11.6%) and Pfizer (8.4%).

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The brand most featured in cough-cold circular promotions is Reckitt Benckiser’s Mucinex, with a share of 7%. Mondelez International’s Halls cough drops are featured in 5.6% of circular ads and P&G’s DayQuil and NyQuil brands are featured in 4.5% and 4.3% of ads respectively.



Walgreens runs the most feature ads in the cough-cold space with 1,369 promotions across brands and private label for the 52 weeks ended Jan. 3, followed by CVS Health (1,088) and Rite Aid (1,014). Kinney Drugs, meanwhile, runs the most promotions featuring a single brand in the ad with the highest effective count (431.6). Each brand gets a count of one for being featured in any ad. The effective ad count divides the count across each specific brand featured in an ad. So for example, if P&G were to run an ad supporting DayQuil and NyQuil, DayQuil and NyQuil would each receive a count of one for being featured in an ad and a count of 0.5 for the effective ad count metric.



ECRM and Drug Store News will be hosting a live interactive webcast Feb. 12 at 2 p.m., in which ECRM lead business intelligence analyst Tanie Andraos will discuss findings from ECRM Data’s Ad Comparisons research covering the cough-cold category, highlighting trends in retailer and brand circular strategies and tactics. Over the course of the webcast, Andraos will address promotional timing, offer and incentive tactics, cross-promotions with complementary categories (such as tea, tissues, soup, etc.), the role of private label and retailer and brand best-in-class strategies. To register, visit https://attendee.gotowebinar. com/register/1650989640696036353.