How to Activate Consumer

Trends Using E-commerce

Product Attribute Data
JARED CONWAY, ALISON ANGUS, LEE LINTHICUM
AND CHRISTOPHER MCNIFF
Not to be distributed without permission.

The data included in this document is accurate

according to Via, Euromonitor International’s market
research database, at time of publication: June 2021
How to Activate
Consumer Trends
Using E-Commerce
Product Attribute Data

Jared Conway, Alison Angus, Lee Linthicum

and Christopher McNiff

CONNECT WITH US

© 2021 Euromonitor International

Contents

1 Introduction

3 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet

Consumer Needs

12 Revising Your Brand Strategy Based on Changing

Product Attributes

18 Conclusion

19 How Can Euromonitor International Help?

© Euromonitor International
Introduction

Top 10 Global Consumer Trends

Every year, Euromonitor International identifies emerging and fast-moving consumer-driven trends that
are expected to gain traction in the year ahead. These trends provide insight into changing consumer
values and priorities and demonstrate how consumer behaviour is shifting and causing disruption for
businesses globally.

In this white paper, we will select one of our top global consumer trends for 2021 and examine how that
trend is manifesting itself in different consumer goods markets around the world. Using Euromonitor’s
global e-commerce tracking tool, Via, we will measure the activation of each consumer trend by counting
the number of stock keeping units (skus) sold online with product attributes corresponding to that
trend. We will also track how sku counts for different attributes change over time to gauge if a consumer
trend is growing or declining. Using this combination of our Global Consumer Trends analysis at the
strategic level and our e-commerce assortment tracking at the tactical level, we will show how companies
can utilise this information to improve their online product presence and performance.

Consumer behaviour in 2021

The Coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic upended lives and businesses globally. Fear, restricted
movement and economic turmoil have shaken and tested consumers who are taking stock and
re-evaluating what is important to them and how they live. As a result, priorities and behaviours that
were emerging pre-covid are accelerating and new habits and routines are surfacing, many of which
are here to stay. Businesses everywhere must understand and adapt to these shifts in the ways
consumers live, shop, work and play in order to stay relevant and succeed moving forward.

© Euromonitor International
2 Introduction

Safety Obsessed, a top consumer trend for 2021

One of Euromonitor’s top 10 global consumer trends for 2021, Safety Obsessed, highlights the evolution
of a new wellness movement prioritising safety and hygiene.

Covid-19 put health and hygiene front of mind for consumers around the world. The fear of infection
and increased health awareness is driving demand for health and hygiene products. Efficiency and
cleanliness are no longer trade-offs, but expectations amongst Safety Obsessed consumers, pushing them
towards contactless out-of-home solutions that minimise human interactions, and companies are shifting
towards more localisation and transparency of supply chains as consumers demand fewer product miles
and touch points.

Alongside this, Safety Obsessed consumers are also protecting their physical and mental health by
increasing consumption of functional food and drinks that strengthen their natural defences against
illness and infection, improve their immunity levels and boost mental wellness, with calming and mood
enhancing qualities.

© Euromonitor International
Why Organisations Need to Look
Online to Meet Consumer Needs

The importance of tracking consumer

trends online
Given the importance of consumer trends such as Safety Obsessed in a post-covid-19 world, companies
can look to e-commerce to track how these trends are manifesting themselves in actual products. As the
shift to online retailing accelerates, organisations face a multitude of challenges to stay ahead of their
competitors and fend off threats from new companies and brands entering the market. A vast online
product selection does not just give consumers more purchase options, it also increases the need for
organisations to continuously monitor the products and attributes being sold generally, and through the
e-commerce channel specifically.

Using e-commerce data to monitor changing product attributes also provides significant benefits
compared to traditional brick and mortar channel research and scan data covering those channels. As
more store-based retailers adopt a multichannel strategy and move online, technology can be used to
automatically capture and organise their full product assortment item by item and from one day to the
next in a way that is simply not possible with in-store retail audits. E-commerce data extraction and data
science solutions allow companies to quickly monitor changing consumer wants and preferences by way
of changes to the products being offered online on a day to day, or week to week basis.

The rise of e-commerce means that businesses are consuming more detailed and frequent data than
ever to inform their strategy. Making sense of all that data remains an enormous challenge. No one
solution works for everyone, but applying the right technology and data structure can deliver the insights
needed to better understand both the e-commerce space and increasingly fluid and fragmented product
assortments.

This white paper highlights a few ways that businesses can use online product assortments from leading
e-commerce websites to systematically and continuously track product attributes. It also shows how
organisations can leverage that information to inform different strategies such as product repositioning,
product reformulations or new product launches. While focusing on product attributes related to the
Safety Obsessed consumer trend, the tactics used in this white paper can be applied to any number of
consumer trends to help organisations see how trends are being activated through specific product claims,
ingredients and other attributes.

© Euromonitor International
4 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs

Monitoring the right product attributes online

Consumers are more aware of health and wellness than ever before. To better understand how well
organisations are satisfying this awareness, we must first identify specific product attributes that
represent the global consumer trend of Safety Obsessed. For this whitepaper, attributes that cut across
packaged food and soft drinks have been identified. Once identified, we use Euromonitor’s e-commerce
tracking tool, Via, to track the number of skus that have each of these attributes in different countries and
product categories. This allows us to track the prevalence of certain attributes across markets and show
where the number of skus is increasing or decreasing in an easy-to-use dashboard.

The specific Safety Obsessed attributes that will be examined in this white paper include:
ƒ Antioxidants
ƒ Good source / enriched with vitamins
ƒ Immune system health
ƒ Probiotics
ƒ Superfoods

These attributes all speak to consumers’ increased health awareness and demand for wellness, which
has only accelerated during the last year thanks to fear of covid-19 infection and the negative impact
isolation and restricted living have all had on consumers’ mental wellbeing. Safety and health will be at
the forefront of consumer behaviour moving forward. Products must no longer just be high quality and
reasonably priced, they must also provide extra levels of security and peace of mind by explicitly offering
key Safety Obsessed attributes.

However, consumers are also inundated with claims, ingredients and other attributes from products
offering a variety of health benefits. This means that finding the right message for what to communicate
as well as what to offer can be very challenging, especially in industries such as packaged foods and soft
drinks where there are product introductions from new and established players on a weekly basis. The
importance and relevance of these attributes also greatly depends on the country or product category, and
consumers are in no way monolithic in their Safety Obsessed needs. What is important for one consumer
base can be very different for another. As a result, the ability to quantify and track these Safety Obsessed
attributes provides powerful insight into the supply-side drivers of changing consumer behaviour. It can
help a company stay up to speed with its product portfolio, if not, see around the corner.

Understanding the size and growth of trends

to optimise product offerings
Identifying the right attributes that are driving global consumer trends is only the first step.

© Euromonitor International
 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs 5

To make actionable decisions within an organisation, definitive and cross-comparable metrics are
paramount. The next step is to understand the sheer size and scale of each attribute; organisations must
understand just how prevalent (or not) an attribute is. In turn, that overall size provides key insights into
the types of products consumers are currently looking for.

While size represents the overall popularity of an attribute by way of the number of skus the attribute
is found in, it is not enough to inform any decisions or to understand changing consumer behaviour.
Rather, changes in the number of skus are just as important. Product attributes can change quickly and
consumers are constantly looking for the most relevant attributes based on their latest needs, core beliefs
or personal values. As a result, the ability to track changes in the online prevalence of skus with specific
attributes provides key intelligence to help companies optimise their product offer.

Case study: Tracking the safety obsessed consumer trend using attribute data

In the following dashboard, we track the key attributes representative of the Safety Obsessed
trend. Taking a macro level view to begin with, the data in the chart shows all the packaged
food skus from September 2019 to March 2021 across 40 key FMCG country markets. For
simple comparability, the number of skus for three separate months have been collected to
showcase how online product assortments are changing according to evolving consumer
needs: September 2019, April 2020 and March 2021.

Number of SKUs with Safety Obsessed Attributes in Packaged Food

Global Category Overview Global ��ribute Overview Country Deep Dive Category Deep Dive

Industry Categories A�ributes Country

Packaged Food All All All

45,000
September 2019
April 2020
40,000
March 2021

35,000

30,000
Number of SKUs

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

An�o�idant Good source / enriched Immune system health Probio�c Superfood

with vitamins

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

© Euromonitor International
6 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs

Examining the change in product prevalence for each attribute from September 2019 to
April 2020 establishes a “pre-covid” baseline showing the magnitude of growth prior to
the pandemic. While covid-19 was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health
Organisation on 11 March 2020, the month of April 2020 will be used as the final month
before consumer behaviour began to significantly change as quarantines and lockdowns
became more commonplace worldwide and manufacturers began to change their product
offerings and positioning for the new normal. Using March 2021 as our concluding month
for the purpose of this white paper, the impact of consumers’ behaviour and how online
product offerings have changed can be clearly observed across the Safety Obsessed
attributes under review.

As seen in the next chart, the leading Safety Obsessed attributes by far across all packaged
food categories in March 2021 were good source / enriched with vitamins and antioxidant,
with 45,012 and 41,103 skus respectively across 40 countries. This clearly shows that these
two attributes are the most common for suppliers activating the Safety Obsessed trend in their
product offerings to stand out in a crowded marketplace. If suppliers and retailers are looking
to understand which are the most prevalent Safety Obsessed attributes in the global market
for packaged food post-covid, antioxidants and good source / enriched with vitamins are the
clear winners based on sku counts compared to the other Safety Obsessed attributes.

Prevalence and growth of Safety Obsessed attributes

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

© Euromonitor International
 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs 7

However, while the size of those leading attributes by number of skus is significantly larger
than other Safety Obsessed claims like immune system health, probiotic and superfood, we
must also examine sku count growth for each of these attributes for more insight. While size
is important, and in some cases can provide a clear answer for which attributes to prioritise,
often that does not represent the whole picture. By tracking sku counts for each attribute on a
daily basis, we can examine how these attributes have changed over time to glean even more
insight on changing product assortments, claims and positioning, and what that in turn implies
for changing consumer behaviour.

In this case, comparing pre-pandemic sku count growth from September 2019 to April 2020,
and covid-era growth from April 2020 to March 2021, shows just how dramatic the impact of
covid-19 has been on the increasing prevalence of Safety Obsessed attributes. We can see
how covid-19 concerns manifested themselves in product offerings worldwide, as suppliers
actively and aggressively increased their use of Safety Obsessed attributes. As previously
discussed, antioxidant and good source / enriched with vitamins were the leading Safety
Obsessed attributes, and they both also saw the biggest absolute sku count increase from
April 2020 to March 2021. However, the other Safety Obsessed attributes also grew strongly
in percentage terms. Probiotic claims for example, grew by 5% on average each month during
the April 2020 to March 2021 time period. What is more important is that this growth was not
just born out of covid-19 related concerns, but the concerns accelerated an already growing
Safety Obsessed trend. In the pre-pandemic time period, we can see that the number of skus
with a probiotic claim had the strongest growth, growing at an average monthly rate of 2%,
considerably higher than the second fastest growing Safety Obsessed claim for that time
period, immune system health at 0.7%.

The importance of tracking these Safety Obsessed attributes over a longer time period
provides clear insights into how the pandemic has changed the types of products being
offered to consumers. For suppliers looking to make actionable changes to their product
portfolios, which is to be discussed in the next section, it is very important to recognise not
just the size of each attribute, but also just how fast each attribute is growing.

Finally, to fully understand changing consumer preferences and demand for Safety Obsessed
attributes, it is not enough to simply count the number of skus for each attribute over time at
the global packaged food level. Suppliers will also need to perform additional due diligence
before selecting attributes to incorporate into their products or deciding on which attributes
to further promote. With a dataset that can further break down the number of skus for each
product attribute by country, product subcategory, company, and brand, we can quickly
identify exactly where the growth for each attribute is coming from.

© Euromonitor International
8 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs

Deep dive into countries and categories

driving attribute growth
Next, we can dive deeper into the fastest growing attribute we identified earlier, focusing on packaged
food skus with probiotic claims. We have mapped the various packaged food categories on a scatterplot.
The X-axis shows the percent share of skus with a probiotic claim in each category relative to the total
number of skus for that category during the month of March 2021. The Y-axis shows how much the
percent share of skus with a probiotic claim in each category has changed from September 2019 to
March 2021. This dashboard view gives companies an indication of a product attribute’s current share
of the online shelf, as well as showing where the attribute’s prevalence is increasing or decreasing over
time to indicate the direction of the trend.

% Share of SKUs against change in % share of SKUs by category and top 5 brands by number of SKUs

Global Category Overview Global ��ribute Overview Country Deep Dive Category Deep Dive

Industry Categories Countries ��ributes Time Period

Packaged Food All All Probio�c Sep-19 - Mar-21

Click on a category in the sca�er plot to see its top 5 brands by number of SKUs for the selected countries, a�ributes and �me period
Top 5 Brands by Number of SKUs

Dairy Yili
0.5% Hipp
Baby Food
Gerber
0.4% Nestlé

Ac��ia
0.3%
Change in % of SKUs

0.2%

0.1%
Processed Fruit and Vegetables
Sweet Biscuits, Snack Bars and Fruit Snacks

0.0%
Breakfast

Cereals Sweet Spreads Other

-0.1%

Baked Goods
-0.2% Edible Oils

0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0%

% of SKUs

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

This is important if a company is looking to understand what packaged food categories are driving trend
activation from the supply side, and in this example we can clearly see that there are very large differences
across categories. Dairy and baby food stand out in the upper right-hand corner of the dashboard as not
only showing a strong online shelf share for skus with probiotic claims but also that the share of shelf for
those claims has increased significantly compared to other categories.

© Euromonitor International
 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs 9

The online assortment data also clearly demonstrates that in the case of packaged food categories such
as edible oils and baked goods on the lower left hand corner, these categories have a low share of shelf for
probiotic claims which has actually declined since September 2019. This highlights that probiotic claims
are not a priority for suppliers playing in these categories, and implies that consumers are not interested
in probiotic claims for those products either. In this case, companies should not focus on probiotic claims
or ingredients for those categories given their low and declining share of the online shelf.

Finally, on the right-hand side of the chart we can see the leading brands for skus with a probiotic
attribute. Understanding what brands and manufacturers are driving growth for each of these Safety
Obsessed attributes is key for not only understanding potential competition in the space but also
learning from the brands that have already penetrated this space. In the case of probiotics, we can see
that the leading brands worldwide in terms of share of online shelf are Danone’s Activia and Nestle’s
Nestle and Gerber brands.

Understanding brands within key markets

stimulating attribute changes
A macro level perspective provides an excellent starting point for identifying where and how trends
are manifesting themselves through specific product attributes, as well as highlighting where each
attribute has a strong and / or growing online shelf presence. As we have seen in our example, we can
use e-commerce data to quickly identify probiotic claims as the fastest growing attribute for the Safety
Obsessed consumer trend. We have also identified dairy and baby food as the categories driving most of
this sku count growth with leading brands including Activia, Nestle and Gerber. Next, we can also identify
the individual countries that are driving online sku count growth, so that companies can refine actionable
strategies to capitalise on the growing Safety Obsessed trend.

Looking more closely at dairy, we can see that China (highlighted) and Italy are the two countries that
have both a strong online share of shelf for the probiotic attribute and have seen strong share of shelf
growth from September 2019 to March 2021. On the opposite end of the spectrum, at the bottom part
of the chart, dairy skus with probiotic claims still have a relatively large presence in countries such as
Russia, New Zealand and Taiwan, but their online share of shelf has declined between September 2019
and March 2021.

© Euromonitor International
10 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs

% Share of SKUs against change in % share of SKUs by country and top 5 brands by number of SKUs

Global Category Overview Global ��ribute Overview Country Deep Dive Category Deep Dive

Industry Categories Countries ��ributes Time Period

Packaged Food Dairy All Probio�c Sep-19 - Mar-21

Click on a country in the sca�er plot to see its top 5 brands by number of SKUs for the selected categories, a�ributes and �me period
Top 5 Brands by Number of SKUs
7.0%

China Classy Kiss

6.0%

�olden Fron�er
5.0%
Italy
4.0%

Other
Change in % of SKUs

3.0% Jun Le Bao

2.0% Czech Republic

Canada
Australia
1.0% Hong Kong, China
Turkey
Singapore
0.0% United Arab Emirates

Sout
nd h Kitozererlaa Russia Mengniu
-1.0% Sw

New Zealand
-2.0%
Yili
-3.0%
Taiwan

0.0% 2.0% 4.0% 6.0% 8.0% 10.0% 12.0% 14.0% 16.0% 18.0% 20.0%
% of SKUs

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

We’ve highlighted China in the dashboard to showcase the brands with the most skus with a probiotic
claim in the Chinese dairy market, so that companies can better understand the competitive landscape
in a potential country, category and attribute to target. The Chinese dairy brands with the most probiotic
skus for the time period from September 2019 to March 2021 were: Mengniu, Yili, Jun Le Bao, Golden
Frontier and Classy Kiss.

Looking at the median sku prices for each of these five brands, we can also see that probiotic skus from
Mengniu, Yili and Jun Le Bao all have a comparatively low price point in the range of USD7.28-USD9.79.
Meanwhile, Golden Frontier and Classy Kiss both have a more premium positioning with median prices
of USD24.71 and USD21.60, respectively. Finally, examining these five leading brands shows a potential
price gap between USD10 and USD22 waiting to be exploited (highlighted by the green box).

© Euromonitor International
 Why Organisations Need to Look Online to Meet Consumer Needs 11

Track median SKU prices to find price gaps to exploit

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via

Much more information at lower category levels of the Chinese dairy market would need to be examined
to make an informed product assortment decision, not to a mention a greater understanding of price
gap strategies (see Euromonitor’s Identify Growth Opportunities for your Brand Whitepaper for more
information). What is important for the sake of this whitepaper is that e-commerce data can be used
to quickly and easily identify the most important Safety Obsessed attributes by size as well as by growth
over a distinct period of time. Moreover, e-commerce data can be used to identify the most important
product categories and countries driving assortment size and growth, as well as the individual brands and
companies leading the way.

Once these categories and countries have been identified, what can companies do to stay ahead of
changing consumer behaviour? In the next section, we’ll identify three basic brand strategy options for
how companies can stay on top of and in front of the biggest consumer trends, such as Safety Obsessed.

© Euromonitor International
Revising Your Brand Strategy
Based on Changing Product
Attributes

Understanding key brand strategy options to

capitalise on changing consumer behavior

Reposition Reformulate Launch New Product

As we have seen in the last section, Safety Obsessed product attributes increased significantly following
the covid-19 pandemic, and it is clear that consumers are demanding more health and wellness benefits
from the products they purchase. Suppliers and retailers alike must continue to keep a close eye on
further changes in consumer behaviour, to closely align product offerings to new consumer preferences
and priorities. Once companies have identified the attributes that are increasing in prevalence and have
zeroed in on the categories and countries that provide the greatest opportunities, then what should they do?

Companies should look to three distinct brand strategy options for capitalising on new consumer trends:
Reposition, Reformulate or Launch New Products. In this section we will examine what each of those
options represent with examples related to Safety Obsessed attributes.

Repositioning products to effectively

communicate brands’ USPs
Consumers are inundated with product claims and other information, and it
can be very challenging for companies to select the right marketing message to
communicate their products’ benefits. Consumer products often have multiple
strong attributes and benefit spaces, such as being enriched with vitamins or

© Euromonitor International
 Revising Your Brand Strategy Based on Changing Product Attributes 13

having superfood ingredients. However, a company cannot throw a laundry list of benefits at consumers
and expect them to make sense of it or align it to their own needs. Consumers are simply too busy and
too overwhelmed with choices to do the work themselves. As a result, companies must understand which
trends are most prevalent and valued by consumers in their markets and ensure that they are correctly
communicating those messages to consumers. One way for a company to do that is through repositioning
of a brand, so that consumers see the brand in a new light or associate it with a new benefit space.

Let’s use an example from the Safety Obsessed trend to show how a company might seek to reposition
a brand based on attribute data. Let’s say that a soft drinks company in Brazil has identified that its
consumers are looking for more healthy product features and it currently promotes its products across
various soft drink categories as being good for immune system health. However, the company saw itself
lose a significant amount of market share during the covid-era to similarly priced competitors. In this
case, the company may want to see what attributes grew the most during the post-pandemic period
for soft drinks and work to promote a similar message to regain lost sales share. Looking at soft drink
attributes in Brazil we can see the five identified Safety Obsessed attributes and how their online sku
presence has changed since the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

Number of SKUs with Safety Obsessed Attributes in Soft Drinks

Global Category Overview Global ��ribute Overview Country Deep Dive Category Deep Dive

Industry Categories A�ributes Country

So� �rin�s All All Brazil

800
September 2019
April 2020
700
March 2021

600
Number of SKUs

500

400

300

200

100

An�o�idant Good source / enriched Immune system health �robio�c Superfood

with vitamins

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

© Euromonitor International
14 Revising Your Brand Strategy Based on Changing Product Attributes

While immune system health skus were the third most prevalent in Brazil in March 2021, good
source / enriched with vitamins was easily the largest Safety Obsessed attribute in the market with
over four times the number of skus. What’s more is the growth of the attribute’s online shelf
presence: while the number of immune system health skus did grow an impressive 165% during
the covid era, the number of skus with good source / enriched with vitamins claims grew the most
at 216%. So not only was the good source / enriched with vitamins attribute the largest of the five
attributes shown, it also grew the fastest. This in turn indicates a very strong reception from
Brazilian consumers given the explosion of products with this Safety Obsessed attribute.

In this case, the company might want to strongly consider repositioning its brands in its soft drinks
portfolio as being good source / enriched with vitamins rather than supporting immune system health
to keep up with Brazilian consumer demand and reverse its sales share losses.

Reformulating products to add

the key ingredients and benefits
consumers want
Repositioning is one option for companies looking to tap into different
attributes already present in a brand to re-engage with consumers.

Sometimes, however, this option simply does not exist and companies need to add healthier
ingredients to win with consumers. This is where product reformulation comes into play to make
it more attractive to your target audience. In the case of capitalising on the Safety Obsessed trend,
companies can easily track which attributes are most prevalent and / or growing their presence the
fastest to identify potential reformulation opportunities.

One way to reformulate products aligned to the Safety Obsessed trend is to look at potential
ingredients that can provide strong health claims to consumers.

For the next example, we will look at a popular juice manufacturer that has a presence across Europe
and is looking to understand in which markets it should reformulate its juice portfolio to have
more antioxidant properties. In this case, the company wants to prioritise what markets it should
reformulate its offering to take advantage of changes in consumers’ mindset resulting from the
pandemic. As we can see from the dashboard, we can plot several Western and Eastern European
countries and look at the number of skus in the juice category that have antioxidant claims to assess
the current product prevalence in each country and, more importantly, which countries are seeing
strong share of shelf growth.

© Euromonitor International
 Revising Your Brand Strategy Based on Changing Product Attributes 15

% Share of SKUs against change in % share of SKUs by country and top 5 brands by number of SKUs

Global Category Overview Global ��ribute Overview Country Deep Dive Category Deep Dive

Industry Categories Countries ��ributes Time Period

So� Drinks Juice Mul�ple values An�o�idant Apr-20 – Mar-21

Click on a country in the sca�er plot to see its top 5 brands by number of SKUs for the selected categories� a�ributes and �me period
Top 5 Brands by Number of SKUs
2.0%

Germany
Juver
1.5% Innocent
Granini

1.0% France Capri-Sun

Belgium
Italy
0.5%
Change in % of SKUs

Denmark Tymbark
0.0%

Sweden
-0.5%
Finland Czech Republic
Russia
-1.0% Spain

Poland
-1.5% Other
United Kingdom

-2.0%

Netherlands
-2.5%
0.0% 1.0% 2.0% 3.0% 4.0% 5.0% 6.0% 7.0% 8.0% 9.0% 10.0% 11.0% 12.0%
% of SKUs

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

The countries with the strongest sku prevalence for antioxidant juices are the countries on the right side
of the chart: Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Poland and Spain. More than 8% of juice skus in each of
these countries had antioxidant claims. However, in each of these countries we can also see that online
share of shelf in these markets actually declined from the start of the pandemic in April 2020 to March
2021. This means that even though these countries had a strong online presence for juice skus with
antioxidant attributes, other health related claims are winning more of the online shelf in the wake of
the pandemic.

Meanwhile, at the top of the chart we can see five countries that showed a growing online share of
shelf for antioxidant juice skus, with countries like Germany, France and Italy showing the strongest
growth. If this juice company is looking to prioritise where to reformulate its products with antioxidant
ingredients and make those claims, these three markets are strong candidates. While other markets
might have a larger presence of antioxidant products, tracking changes in online sku counts and share
of shelf can help the company find where exactly it should be reformulating its products.

© Euromonitor International
16 Revising Your Brand Strategy Based on Changing Product Attributes

Launching new products based

on consumer trend opportunities
Finally, if a company has white space in its portfolio, it can use product
assortment data to help identify which attribute it should be prioritising in
which countries and categories. While launching a new product is often the
hardest and riskiest option of the three, staying ahead of shifting consumer behaviour and understanding
product activation for consumer-driven trends is paramount. Responding to the Safety Obsessed trend
is especially important given how much consumer attitudes for staying safe and healthy have intensified
during the crisis.

For the final example, we’ll look at the US packaged food market and a company that produces baked
goods such as cakes and pastries but is looking to expand into other food categories. The company has
identified superfood claims as a Safety Obsessed trend to target and is looking to create new products
with a more health-conscious image to complement its more indulgent product offerings in cakes and
pastries. Within US packaged food, we can see the categories with the largest number of products with
superfood claims in March 2021 were Sweet Biscuits, Snack Bars and Fruit Snacks, Savoury Snacks,
Breakfast Cereals, Baby Food and Sweet Spreads.

Number of SKUs with Safety Obsessed Attributes in US Packaged Food

Global Category Overview Global ��ribute Overview Country Deep Dive Category Deep Dive

Industry Categories A�ributes Country

Packaged Food All Superfood USA

240
September 2019
220 April 2020
March 2021
200

180

160
Number of SKUs

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0
Sweet Savoury Breakfast Baby Food Sweet Edible Oils Sauces, Processed Dairy Rice, Pasta Ready Baked Confec�on Processed Ice Cream
Biscuits, Snacks Cereals Spreads Dressings Meat and and Meals Goods ery Fruit and and Frozen
Snack Bars and Seafood Noodles Vegetables Desserts
and Fruit Condiments
Snacks

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

© Euromonitor International
 Revising Your Brand Strategy Based on Changing Product Attributes 17

However, focusing on sku count growth in the pre-pandemic versus covid-era time period provides key
insights on the popularity of the superfood attribute by category. In the table, we can see how drastic
the pandemic was in changing the presence of Safety Obsessed attributes. In particular, the change in
direction of Breakfast Cereals with Superfood claims is particularly impressive and speaks to the dramatic
shift of consumers spending more time at home and demanding products that make them feel safe
and healthy. While the company will likely need to consider additional factors to decide on a category
to launch a new product with superfood claims, the consumer interest in Breakfast Cereals provides a
promising opportunity.

Growth of Safety Obsessed attributes in US packaged food

Source: Euromonitor International’s Via Attribute Tracker Dashboard

Other factors must also be considered for

a holistic brand strategy change
While this white paper focused on product attributes to determine potential brand strategy changes, many
other factors would need to be considered alongside before making any final decision. Companies should
look to layer on additional analysis such as size and direction of market sales, competitive environment,
pricing strategy, retailer dynamics and political and economic scenarios to name but a few. The point
is that understanding and tracking key product attributes provides a powerful way to evaluate how a
market is evolving and identify future market opportunities.

© Euromonitor International
Conclusion

With e-commerce sales accelerating due to the covid-19 pandemic, the use of online retailer data is
becoming even more essential for companies’ strategic and tactical planning to optimise their assortment.

In this whitepaper, we have introduced one of the most important global consumer trends in a post
covid-19 world, Safety Obsessed, and shown how the trend is manifesting itself in different consumer
goods markets around the world by quantifying the number of skus sold online with product attributes
corresponding to that trend.

For companies to stay up to speed on changing consumer behaviour, it is critical that they track this
information. Companies must understand the prevalence and popularity of consumer trends like
Safety Obsessed by way of number of products sold online that speak to that trend. However, given the
dynamism of consumer behavioural changes in FMCG products, it is not enough to understand online
product presence at one particular time and companies must continuously track this to understand the
movements of these attributes to make actionable decisions and stay ahead of their competitors. For
example, while we identified good source / enriched with vitamins and antioxidant as being the largest
attributes for the Safety Obsessed trend by way of number of skus at the global level, probiotics saw the
fastest growth in the covid era.

By diving deeper into what markets and players are driving these trends, companies can generate powerful
insight into the supply-side drivers of changing consumer behaviour to inform brand strategies. The brand
strategies identified in this white paper included repositioning brands to more effectively communicate
key messages, reformulating products to include key attributes and launching new products where white
space exists for attractive product attributes. While companies need to layer on additional analysis to
decide on the correct brand strategy to execute, e-commerce assortment data that tracks the prevalence
of different product attributes over time provides a powerful starting point.

The methodology outlined in this whitepaper can be applied to any FMCG category with an online
presence, allowing brands and companies to take advantage of standardised web extracted data to
understand changing consumer trends by way of product attributes.

© Euromonitor International
How Can Euromonitor
International Help?

Via from Euromonitor International makes e-commerce data simple. By extracting and organising
pricing, assortment and attribute data from online retailers on a daily basis, we help you set pricing and
promotional strategies, optimise online distribution, plan for new product development, track your
competitors and support your retailer and supplier negotiations.

Whether you’re an expert or new to e-commerce data, we will partner with you to build a solution
that works. Based on what you’re looking to achieve, we provide you with the relevant data in the right
deliverable to get you the insights that matter most.

Strategic

Tactical

What’s next? Where to play? How to win? How am I doing?

Monitor new launches Size the opportunity by Track nascent / Daily view on
across e-commerce product claim / attribute fast-growing product e-commerce pricing
attributes and assortment

Learn more about how Via can support your organisation’s strategic and tactical objectives or request a
demonstration to see it in action.

© Euromonitor International