Mead chalks up top position in smaller field - top stationery brands at discount stores - Top Brands, Part 1: Store Manager Survey

Discount Store News, Oct 1, 1990

Mead Chalks Up Top Position in Smaller Field

For the fifth straight year, Mead took the No. 1 spot in DSN's Top Brands Survey and with a convincing lead over No. 2 Bic.

Mead and the five other stationery brands that returned to the top 10 list this year all received more discount store manager mentions as top performing brands than in 1989.

Contributing to the improvement, according to store managers, is overall brand recognition and product performance. Another consideration that must be factored in is the exclusion of greeting cards in the current survey.

This year, DSN decided to break out the greeting card category into a separate survey within Top Brands. This was done to better identify the key players and their performance at discount stores.

The stationery category has now been left to concentrate on store managers brand perceptions of traditional stationery items such as notebooks, filler paper, writing instruments, desk and office accessories and related back-to-school and home/office products.

Even with the new ground rules for this year, three greeting card brands were named by store managers as top performers in stationery. They were Sangamon (No. 12), American Greetings (No. 17), and Hallmark (No. 19). Of course, Hallmark does not sell to the mass market under its own label, but rather through its mass market division, Ambassador. Nevertheless, some store managers named the brand as a top performer in their stationery department.

Mead's consistent hold on the No. 1 spot underscores the strength of the popular brand. Its top position in the current survey was due to first place finishes in all areas of the survey. However, Mead did report fewer mentions this year from K mart and Ames store managers and among retailers in the North Central and West regions.

Interestingly enough, when store managers were asked why their top stationery brands perform so well, there was substantial disagreement among individuals from the four major chains.

Advertising was given relatively low priority in comparison to brand recognition (No. 1) and product performance (No. 2) everywhere but at Ames.

Target managers gave more emphasis to a vendor's large line of goods. Product performance wound up the second consideration.

K mart managers attributed a brand's success more often to product performance and brand recognition but Wal-Mart managers linked brand recognition by far as the main reason followed by product performance, advertising and line variety, which were tied for their relative importance.

In the overall survey, Mead was named a top performing brand by half the discount store managers polled, the same results calculated by conventional and upscale discounters.

No. 2 Bic, received less than half the number of mentions as Mead, or one-fifth of total manager responses.

No. 3 Crayola, last year's No. 4 brand behind American Greetings, garnered half the responses of Bic. The response level was an improvement over the crayon brand's 1989 results.

Despite Crayola's improved position on the current stationery survey, its lead over No. 4 Papermate is a slim one percentage point.

In fact, Crayola, Papermate, Stuart Hall and Cambridge, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth place finishers, respectively, are separated in the standings by mere fractions.

For each of those brands, however, this year's results pumped up their relative standing on the chart. Crayola, Papermate and Cambridge, a division of Mead, moved up one notch apiece. Stuart Hall leaped from the No. 10 spot on the 1989 survey to fifth place this year.

New to the top brands list in stationery were Rubbermaid (No. 7), Scripto (No. 8), Pentel (No. 9) and Norcom (No. 10).

Rubbermaid's rise to the top 10 list can be linked to the chain's growing list of products in the home office category. Its presence will no doubt strengthen in the coming years now that it has acquired Eldon, a big producer of desk and office accessories.

Norcom's rise to the top 10 list comes as the company approaches its 10-year anniversary. A relative newcomer to the category, Norcom has been supplying basic stationery products to K mart, Wal-Mart and Target for some years now. Atlanta-based Norcom has "picked up many new customers this year" including Ames, said Larry Stoffer, national accounts managers. Time and a swelling roster of accounts has contributed to the company's increased recognition by store managers.

In fact, Norcom rose to the No. 5 brand at Wal-Mart and in the South this year, moving past many more well-known names. At Wal-Mart, Norcom tied Crayola, last year's No. 5 finisher.

Mead's dominance as the top performing brand in the stationery category was more decisive at Target than at any of the other chains.

At Target, Mead was mentioned as a top performer by nearly six out of 10 managers surveyed, three times the mention rate of No. 2 Bic, which tied Cambridge for second place. Crayola was the No. 4 stationery brand at Target followed by Pentel.

K mart managers gave Mead its weakest first place showing with one-third the respondents saying it was a top performer, only barely edging out No. 2 Bic. Crayola was the No. 3 brand at K mart followed by Cambridge, and Papermate tied for fourth.