Prestige Brands plans to boost support of Little Remedies

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. - Prestige Brands plans to pour more advertising and promotion dollars behind its pediatric cough/cold brand Little Remedies in the mass marketplace, outgoing Prestige Brands president and CEO Matthew Mannelly told analysts Thursday. 

 

"Little Remedies continues to have very strong consumption gains across all segments and that's as a result of really an integrated program in terms of TV and digital marketing support," Mannelly said. "Little Remedies had a terrific year and we believe Little Remedies' differentiation really positions it well for long-term success. Little Remedies will be our lead pediatric brand moving forward because of that differentiation in the marketplace versus the competitive brands," he added. "And you can see the growth that new products has helped deliver for Little Remedies, as well as we've done quite a bit of digital advertising around Little Remedies for really the last five years."

 

The proof is in the results, Mannelly said. Consumption of Little Remedies across its brand portfolio is up 3.7% in the latest 26 weeks and nearly 8.5% in the latest 12 weeks, Mannelly noted, citing IRI multi-outlet and C-Store, for the periods ending March 22.

 

"We're quite pleased with the momentum of Little Remedies, we're also quite pleased in the competitive environment how Little Remedies' point of difference and differentiation versus the competition is resonating so strong with the consumers," Mannelly added. 

 

Meanwhile, Prestige will position its PediaCare line against ethnic consumers and the dollar channel. "We're still going to support PediaCare," Mannelly said. "We have some exciting things with PediaCare in terms of target audiences and things we're doing with the Hispanic community with PediaCare. We also have some exciting things that we're looking at in terms of channels of distribution and better leveraging PediaCare in the dollar channel."

 

Presently, both brands are represented in all of the major accounts, Mannelly noted. Though there has been some distribution and facing losses for PediaCare this year, he confirmed. 

 

Thursday also marked Mannelly's last quarterly conference call as Prestige president and CEO as he retires effective June 1. Succeeding Mannelly will be Ron Lombardi, presently CFO, who will assume the reigns as both president and CEO. The company has commenced a search for a new CFO.

 

“Ron and Matt have worked together for 10 years including five years at Prestige Brands. During their tenure at Prestige, they developed and successfully executed against a very specific strategy,” stated Gary Costley, lead director of the board of directors at Prestige, when the company made the announcement. “We will continue to execute against this proven strategy with Ron Lombardi as our chief executive officer.”

 

Lombardi joined Prestige in December 2010. His experience includes five years as CFO and COO for Cannondale Sports Group/Dorel Recreation and Leisure, a consumer sporting equipment and apparel company. He has also held leadership positions in finance at Gerber Scientific and at Emerson Electric, two large publicly traded companies.