For the seventh year in a row, Coca-Cola is the most-chosen fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand in the world. Pepsi and Nescafe also made the top 10 at number six and seven, respectively.
The top seven brands, including Pepsi and Nescafe, remained unchanged from last year. Sprite again came in at number 17, while Fanta dropped one place to 33rd, and Lipton rose two to 48th. Kantar measures brands using Consumer Reach Points (CRP), a combination of penetration, population and consumer choice.
In households where the brand was purchased at least once, Coca-Cola reached 41.9% penetration, Pepsi 22.7%, Nescafe 22.7% and Sprite 24.8%.
Complex shoppers drive Coca-Cola
Kantar called 2018 a ‘significant improvement’ for the Coca-Cola brand despite the fact that it is ‘in decline.’ It reported that Coca-Cola saw growth in every region last year except Mexico, its biggest market, which dropped by 7%.
Coca-Cola was picked from shelves 5.9bn times; Kantar found it performed best in markets where sugar taxes have been introduced.
“If Mexico had simply remained flat, the brand would have been in growth overall—reiterating the importance of any brand’s number one market,” Kantar said.
In France, Spain and the UK, Coca-Cola’s customers skew young with those under 35, while in Mexico it’s more popular with the older generations. Original Coca-Cola also lost out on 30% in volume due to consumers switching to Coke Zero, which did particularly well in the UK and China.
“Combining all nine markets we’ve looked at, under 35s represent less than a quarter of all the times the brand is chosen—while the over 50s account for almost 40%,” Kantar said.
“People over 50 are not just pensioners with grey hair. They also have higher disposable income on average, and arguably a greater desire for choice than the other two age groups. Shopper behavior is more complex and more nuanced than date of birth.”
Out-of-home a win for beverages
Global drink brands overall maintained a market share of 39.5% from 2017 to 2018, and local brands maintained a 60.5% share in the same time frame.
Kantar says out-of-home (OOH) purchases have a significant impact on the success of major soda brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi because consumers are more likely to make impulse purchases when they are on-the-go without considering healthy choices.
OOH accounts for 41% of all spending for non-alcoholic beverages and snack food. Kantar analyzed OOH purchases in China, Brazil, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Portugal, Thailand and the UK for this year’s rankings. It found that Sprite’s OOH presence vs in-home grew 11% in 2018, while Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Fanta, Red Bull, 7-UP and Nestle Waters were also strong OOH.
Overall, Kantar’s top ten non-alcoholic brands OOH were Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Fanta, Sprite, Minute Maid, Red Bull, Nestle Waters, 7-UP, Nescafe and Oasis, respectively.
Kantar also ranked brands in e-commerce performance: Nescafe came in 8th, Pepsi was 22nd and Coca-Cola was 23rd. It said the five key countries driving growth in e-commerce are China, South Korea, Taiwan, France and the UK.
“When looking at all the brands growing in this year’s ‘Brand Footprint’ ranking, online has driven more than half (53%) of this growth on average. E-commerce commands less than 10% share versus other channels--meaning that, in the countries we’ve studied, e-commerce in fact drives five times as much growth as would be expected from its fair share,” Kantar said.
