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By Stephen McMahon, January 18, 2006
CIGARETTES remain among Australia's best-selling
brands despite advertising bans and big-spending campaigns against
smoking.
Five of the top six brands are cigarettes, according
to the annual ACNielsen's Top 100 brands report, with Longbeach
and Winfield reporting annual sales of more than $750 million for
the first time.
However, the report's findings, which are based
on sales figures, are skewed in favour of cigarette companies because
of the 60 per cent-plus tax on cigarettes compared with the 10 per
cent GST on most grocery items.
For the 13th consecutive year, Coca-Cola was
Australia's leading brand.
In 2005, the top 100 grocery brands generated
sales of $14.1 billion - up 12 per cent on the previous year - representing
almost one in three of the packaged grocery items sold nationwide,
according to ACNielsen's director of client services, Anton van
den Berg.
The ANZ professor of strategic marketing at the
Melbourne Business School, Richard Speed, said rankings of brands
never told the whole story.
"This report is a measure of sales and therefore
a financial short-term measure of brands in which those with the
greatest distribution networks will do best," Professor Speed
said.
He believes the biggest losers over the next
12 to 24 months could be milk brands Pura (11th) and Pauls (12th),
which he expects will come under increasing price pressure from
supermarket private-label brands.
Australian Food and Grocery Council chief executive
Dick Wells said middle-ranking brands were under the greatest threat
from the expected growth in privately labelled products.
The long-term future of premium brands was in
the hands of brand owners, and private-label brands would gain market
share only if manufacturers lost focus and stopped innovating and
investing in their brand, Mr van den Berg said.
Nearly half the top 100 brands are owned by 10
manufacturers. British American Tobacco and Philip Morris are two
of the top three grocery product suppliers.
Source by : http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/cigarettes-still-smokin-in-league-ofbestsellers/2006/01/17/1137466989672.html |