Oils and filters top auto brands rankings - discount store sales of auto supplies - Top Brands, Part 1: Store Manager Survey

Discount Store News, Oct 16, 1989

Oils and Filters Top Auto Brands Rankings

Quaker State again surged to the No. 1 spot on DSN's Top Brands Survey, bypassing Pennzoil, last year's top brand.

After four years of being No. 2, last year Pennzoil edged out Quaker State for the top spot on the 1988 survey by one percentage point, but lost that edge and slipped back to second place.

In fact, Quaker State surged past Pennzoil this year, overtaking the No. 2 brand by 11 percentage points.

Quaker State's surge was largely due to substantial advances at K mart and Target, to a lesser degree at Wal-Mart, and in all four regions.

But the advance was tempered by a dramatic decline at Ames/Zayre, a result, no doubt, from the readjustment of product lines resulting from Ames' acquisition of Zayre earlier this year.

Still, Quaker State advanced on the survey despite financial problems that have prompted it to surrender less profitable sales.

Four out of 10 discount store managers named the popular motor oil label as a top performing brand in the automotives department, a gain of 10 percentage points from last year.

Among upscale discounters, Quaker State more than doubled the number of mentions it got last year.

Pennzoil was mentioned as a top performing brand by roughly the same number of managers this year as in 1988.

Nearly three out of 10 store managers said Pennzoil was a top performer in automotives, two percentage points less than a year ago.

Top Performer

Store managers from all four discount chains mentioned Pennzoil as a top performer more often this year than in the prior year. Wal-Mart managers named Pennzoil more than twice as often this year as last year and one-fourth the Target managers mentioned the brand as a top performer, an increase of nearly 300 percent.

Pennzoil was the top performer at Target followed by Quaker State and Fram.

Continuing the trend of the past few years, motor oils and oil filters again dominated the Top 10 list, accounting for six of the top brands. However, in 1988 motor oils and oil filter labels accounted for eight of the top 10 brands. Taking their place are other automotive maintenance products.

Table : Automotives Top Brands' Performance by Region

                                         North
Brand               Northeast   South   Central   West
Quaker State           37%       34%      48%     38%
Pennzoil               17        16       44      37
Valvoline               9        16       22      20
Fram                   22        12       17      23
Havoline                2        22       14      11
STP                    15        17        9       4
Preston                 8         7        6      20
Castrol/Castroil       12         8        8       3
AC-Delco                4         4       10       -
Turtle Wax              7         8        2       -

Overall, eight of last year's top 10 performing automotives brands returned to the list in 1989. Also, with two additions and two subtractions, a slight reshuffling of ranking was recorded.

New to the Top 10 list this year is AC-Delco and Turtle Wax, which are tied for ninth.

AC-Delco's rise may be due to its attempts at increasing its presence in the market.

AC-Delco and Turtle Wax replaced Armor All and Champion, which tied for ninth on the 1988 survey.

This year, Armor All is tied for 14th with Black & Decker and General Electric. Champion fell one spot to 11th even though it developed a line of other products, including filters, and licensed its name to GNB for auto batteries.

The decline of Armor All is surprising. Armor All introduced its own line of auto waxes in an attempt to build on the strength of its protectant.

In addition, last year Armor All bought the Rain Dance and Rally wax lines from Borden.

The top 10 list is as follows for 1989: Quaker State and Pennzoil in the one-two positions; Valvoline in third; Fram, fourth; Havoline, fifth; STP, sixth; Prestone, seventh; Castrol/Castroil, eighth; AC-Delco, ninth; and Turtle Wax, 10th.

The current standings reflect numerous position changes from 1988. They are: Valvoline's move to No. 3 from No. 6; STP up one spot to sixth; Fram down one to fourth; Havoline down one to sixth; and Prestone down two to seventh.

Castrol was the only brand to stay in the same position as a year ago.

The success of any one brand in the automotives department is largely due to advertising, store managers report.

In fact, advertising was the No. 1 factor store managers attributed to the success of automotive brands, unlike all of the other merchandise categories surveyed in the 1989 Top Brands report.

Nearly eight out of 10 store managers said that advertising is the reason for the success of top performing automotives brands, followed by brand recognition and product performance.

Advertising was mentioned as the top consideration by nearly all the managers who said Pennzoil was a top performer and by nearly as many who said Havoline. Brand recognition was second and product performance third for both labels.

Of the five specific automotive labels mentioned by store managers as top performers in automotives only Quaker State and Valvoline produced different results.