In late May of 1996, the research manager for Kerry Gold Products met with the product manager

Question:

In late May of 1996, the research manager for Kerry Gold Products met with the product manager for margarine to review the company’s first experience with Nielsen scanner data.

A year-long test in a single chain organization, which began in April 1995, had been completed recently. The first purpose of their review was to interpret the findings. They decided to concentrate on the results of the first 18 weeks of the tests, which are summarized in Figure 6.3. The size of the bars represents the weekly unit sales for Kerry Gold brand and the three competing brands also sold by the chain organization. In addition to the weekly data, there were summary data on share of total sales for the first and second halves of the year. This distinction was important because Kerry Gold had spent relatively little on promotion in the second half of the year. Since Nielsen had full records of all sales, they were also able to examine their share of sales during weeks when no brands offered price-reduction promotions. These data are shown in the two right-hand columns in Table 6.6.

While reviewing these results, the research manager also was wondering whether scanner data would be useful for other grocery products sold by Kerry Gold. Many of them were as heavily promoted as margarine. Judgments on the desirability of consumer promotions for these products usually were based on a combination of store audit data plus periodic controlled experiments.

Kerry Gold brand Regular 1 lb. 58e 16,773 21,715 19,340 19,468 935 599 634 747 737 601 773 746 744 772 723 797 706 586 58e 38¢ -58¢ 38¢ 58¢ 38¢ -58e 38¢ K 58¢ Brand B 5,927 6,460 Regular 1 Ib. 49-54-58 2,960 1,713 1,513 1,127 1,256 1,359 1,268