Once again we’re pleased to see our brand in the news.

This week Giles Lury, Director of Branding, appears in The Grocer, in Alex Beckett’s article, ‘Chew on this: too much NPD can be a category’s undoing’.

Giles comments on some of the issues facing the chewing gum market – we’ve selected some of his quotes:  ”Chewing gum got too complicated for its own good… There was an explosion of fruit flavours a few years ago, which led to a cluttered shelf space that was hard to navigate. In some ways it was a victim of its own success.”

“Society doesn’t have a good perception of gum and it lacks positive role models… [it] has a long term-societal battle to fight.”

If you’d like to read more and have access to the magazine online, click here.

Just before Christmas we commented on various marketing stories in The Grocer of (19th December 2009 edition).

Chewing gum has been one of the surprise victims in recession, with sales plummeting.

We commented: “The drop in sales could also be down to hard-up consumers switching to nostalgic sweets. In this climate heart-warming appeal is a more important sales driver than functional branding”.

Alex Waters, our Director of Capabilities, commented in the ‘Top Products 2009: Survival of the Fittest’ feature by Catherine Dawes on brands, own label, chasing deals and new habits. He said, “These top brands are performing well because they provide reassurance. The biggest weapon brands have in the fight against own label is the trust they have built up over the years.”

Alex argued that people are happy to spend the extra for that reassurance, and that the brands that lose out, are those further down the table. “The big brands are doing well, own label is doing OK. The middle is the real danger zone”. In conclusion, he summised, ”the shifts in buying behaviour are here to stay. People have re-evaluated what they want to pay for and what they don’t. I don’t think shopping habits will return to those of the boom time.”

Read further comments from Alex and the full article on The Grocer online.