Christmas confectionery marketing goes into overdrive
With deadlines once again looming for our festive edition of the magazine, this will be a relatively short, but hopefully sweet update from myself this week.
As many of you will no doubt have witnessed over the past few weeks, Christmas marketing campaigns have been ramped up into overdrive right across the industry.
The fact confectionery ingredients are coming increasingly under the microscope by health bodies and governments around the world including the UK, does not seem to have dented manufacturers’ seasonal offerings.
Everyone from Ferrero, Mars, and Cadbury, through to a host of smaller artisan producers has placed plenty of energy into the festive season. It’s not hard to see why, when the value of confectionery to the UK economy alone has been put at £1.1 billion, with a total of around £680 million exported from Britain to markets as wide-ranging as Canada, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates to name a few.
Catch the next edition of the magazine due to press at the end of this week for a round-up of some of the latest products making the way to shelves around the world – there’s no lack of creativity out there.
From Nestlé’s range of five striking chocolate advent calendars (including a reduced sugar Wowsome one), Ferrero’s multi-million investment in its latest Christmas range including its new Thornton’s Pearls premium chocolates and classic Rocher series, to a special range of chocolate advent calendars from chocolatier Paul A Young, there’s plenty of options out there to create some seasonal cheer.
One thing is for sure, It’s certainly remains a fiercely competitive market, so you’ll barely be able to watch a TV show without some of your favourite brands of confectionery offering a message that chimes with festive goodwill and merriment. While there’s nothing exceptionally unusual in this, it perhaps serves to underline that in marketing terms, for the major manufacturers, being out of sight of customers is very much out of mind in terms of the all-important tussle for a slice of the Christmas market.
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