Hiked spend fails to lift Sainsbury’s market share

BYLN: By David Benady

Sainsbury’s has failed to lift its market share despite a doubling of advertising spend which coincided with the launch of its customer-care campaign last June.

New figures from Register-MEAL show Sainsbury more than doubled its spend in the third quarter of 1995 compared with last year. The increase came with the launch of the customer-care campaign, which featured Gladiators frontwoman Ulrika Jonsson. Sainsbury’s spent 5.1m between July and September 1994. This leapt to 11.1m for the same period in 1995.

But the chain’s market share between June and September remained static at 19.5 per cent, according to AGB’s Till Roll Share of Grocers. Analysts say any effects of Sainsbury’s customer-care campaign could take some months to show.

Supermarket retailers have increased advertising spend by a third overall in the third quarter of 1995, according to Register-MEAL. Safeway spent 144 per cent more, up from 3.6m for the period last year to 8.9m for the same period this year.

By contrast, Tesco’s spend fell from 6.3m last year to 2.6m this year. On the AGB data, its market share grew from 20.5 per cent to 21.2 per cent between June and September.