a brief look into dairy advertising - market research

I think the first place to start is to look at the dairy market as a whole, any trends, existing brands, popularity, anything that will give me an overview of the dairy market and a brief understanding of its advertising.


I looked on www.dairyco.net for information on milk sales In the last year to assure myself there is a space in the market for a new milk product-


UK dairy advertising expenditure -

• Total advertising on dairy in 2009/10 amounted to £113.9 million.
• Advertising expenditure on dairy fell by 0.9% between 2008/09 and 2009/10.
• between 2000 and 2009, advertising expenditure of liquid milk has more than doubled

this means more and more money over the last decade has been put into advertising dairy, milk in particular which has seen a huge rise, however in the last year, advertising expenditure on dairy has fallen, perhaps because of the financial situation of many companies who cannot afford to advertise.

- this is showing me that there is a market for my product - it is important when advertising to make sure there is a market for the product, enough people to buy and choose that product, because if the milk market was in decline, with fewer sals year on year, it would be pointless and a bad move to release a new milk product. Milk as a whole is a product that is in maturity of the product life cycle, meaning its sales are not increasing rapidly, neither decreasing rapidly, but are stable.

- The average price per litre across the liquid milk market was 62p, this has fallen 7.5% in the last year

- sales of organic milk have dropped in the last year 9%, however expenditure on advertising for organic milk has also dropped 9.1%, showing there is a relationship between expenditure and sales. It also means if organic milk sales has dropped, perhaps due to the lack of advertising, then their may be a gap in the market to release a new organic product, that if well advertised could be popular. however releasing a new product into a declining market isnt a good idea. The graph clearly shows that sales of organic milk are falling, and that it isnt a current trend.

advertising standards -

- states that unhealthy foods cannot be broadcast around TV programmes aimed at children, included in this can be whole milk, depending on its fatty content. this means if i were to advertise a whole milk product i would have to consider this when looking at my target audience. There are no rules for semi or skimmed milk regarding audience.


brands -
Dairy Crest  (21% share of milk market)
Robert Wiseman (27% share)
Arla ( owns Cravendale, 46% share)

the milk market is mainly dominated by these three brands. 





Next - i am going to look into these brands, what products they have, and what they do in terms of advertising to assess the competition and gain an understanding of conventional dairy advertising, what works, what doesn't.