Cadbury to rein in Trident gum range

Cadbury is understood to be planning a consolidation of its Trident chewing gum range to refocus on its plans to steal market share from Wrigley.

The confectionery giant is scaling back all new product development and is planning to scrap a large number of flavours and variants. It will launch a major advertising campaign to support the reduced line.

Industry insiders say Cadbury has launched “a few too many lines” and is struggling to give them all proper support. One says: “It is consolidating spend on Trident by doing fewer launches, but increasing the advertising and marketing activity.”

It is expected to adopt a “one in, one out” policy with flavours, which it has already introduced on limited editions for Cadbury Dairy Milk.

Trident was launched in a blaze of advertising and publicity at the start of 2007. The launch aimed to challenge the dominance of Wrigley, and it has always been Cadbury’s stated aim to steal market share from the market leader.

The brand immediately ran into trouble when its £10m launch advertising campaign was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for being potentially offensive  (MW March 28, 2007). It followed 519 complaints that the ad used “harmful stereotypes”.

An industry source says that, despite a successful launch, sales of Trident have “failed to materialise” as Cadbury had hoped. She adds that it has a 9% market share, but had wanted to reach 25% by this time. It built a 15.4% market share in the UK within months of its launch, but insiders say that its over-ambitious launch strategy diluted its success.

A Cadbury spokesman says: “It is our intention to ensure Trident competes effectively with Wrigley to take market share. It is important to have the right range of products to continue our attack.”

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