Leveraging the power of brands

Drug Store News, Dec 12, 1994 by Liz Parks

"There's not too many private label products out there that would be successful without the brand sitting next to them. Without Tylenol on the shelf, a knock-off of Tylenol is meaningless," Gaddis said.

When brand = category

In Detroit, Steve Lund, merchandise director of health & beauty care/cosmetics for F&M stores, pointed out that "brands are where categories start in the consumer's eye."

However, while brands create categories and brand advertising helps to drive consumers into retail stores, it is the retailers' "utilization of brands, their product mix, their cross merchandising of their stores, their departmental adjacencies and their promotional programs that determine how much growth the retailer ultimately derives form the brand's presence on the playing field," Lund added.

In the past few years, Lund thinks, drug stores have benefited the most from the brands that emerged when popular prescription products went off patent and were able to convert to over-the-counter health remedies.

"Rx-to-OTC brands like Tavist-D and Monistat have had a very dramatic impact on drug stores," Lund said.

"The advertising for these brands hit hard when they launched, and it was consistent and very well done. As a result, they brought new customers into drug stores, and that's a major contribution."

ADULT COLD REMEDIES

The Top 25 adult cold remedies account for 87 percent of all dollar volume in both three-outlet stores (food, food/drug, drug and mass merchandise) and drug stores.

Private label and store brands account for nearly 20 percent of dollar volume in the three-outlet trade class and in drug stores.

Four brand families together account for a third of all the dollar sales generated by the Top 25 highest dollar volume brands: Vicks, Alka Seltzer, Tavist and Dimetapp.

Sudafed and Benadryl, which do not have line extensions in the Top 25 highest dollar volume brands, are, nevertheless, very strong brands.

Sudafed is the third highest dollar volume brand in the three-outlet trade class and in drug, and Benadryl is the sixth in the three-outlet trade class and the fourth largest in drug.

The top 25 brands

The best selling adult cold remedy brands, as ranked by dollar sales in food, food/drug, drug and mass outlets

                                          %
                                  $      chng    % share
                                sales     vs       of
                                 in      year   category
Rank           Brand          millions   ago     sales
  1    Private                  $249.6    10.0     16.4%
       labels
  2    Vicks Nyquil              141.6     0.3      9.3
  3    Sudafed                   113.1     6.3      7.4
  4    Alka Seltzer Plus          79.8    -0.8      5.2
  5    Tavist D                   79.3    29.3      5.2
  6    Benadryl 25                75.6     8.5      5.0
  7    Dimetapp                   75.0    -2.5      4.9
  8    Theraflu                   45.7     3.0      3.0
  9    Tylenol Cold               44.3    -8.1      2.9
 10    Drixoral                   38.6   -14.1      2.5
 11    Vicks Dayquil              36.8     4.6      2.4
 12    Comtrex                    36.2   -12.3      2.4
 13    Chlor-Trimeton             34.2   -13.5      2.2
 14    Advil Cold & Sinus         32.4    11.6      2.1
 15    Contac                     31.2   -10.4      2.0
 16    Efidac/24                  29.7      na      2.0
 17    Robitussin                 28.9   200.0      1.9
 18    Actifed                    27.9   -14.6      1.8
 19    Triaminic                  23.1    28.7      1.5
 20    Dimetapp DM                21.0    -0.5      1.4
 21    Dristan Cold               17.6   -11.2      1.2
 22    Alka Seltzer Plus          17.5   -11.6      1.2
       Nightime
 23    Triaminicol                15.4    -7.0      1.0
 24    Coricidin "D"              15.3   -14.8      1.0
 25    Tavist 1                   14.7     5.5      1.0
       Top 25 dollar volume   $1,324.5      na     87.0%
       Total category         $1,521.3     5.8    100.0%