Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Frozen & Dairy Buyer magazine.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) has nothing to do with promotion in the sense of endcaps or price cuts. Rather, it has everything to do with shopper buzz. Here's how it works.
Last October, in a special "aisle of the month" section of the Consumer Intentions and Actions (CIA) Survey, our pals at BIGresearch asked 8,767 adults aged 18+ about their frozen food shopping habits.
Respondents were asked to rate, on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely), the probability they would recommend the brand of frozen food they buy most often to a friend or colleague. Ten and nine responses indicate Promoters, eight and seven responses are Passives, and zero through six are Detractors. The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.
In our chart, you'll see that Ben & Jerry's has the highest NPS, at 48.9 percent. That's really good, considering that a company like Apple gets something like a 77, said Roger Saunders, managing director of the Prosper Group of Companies, which runs BIGresearch. The NPS score can cut both ways, of course. A manufacturer whose brand has a high NPS might insist that more facings are needed to stay in stock with this "must have" SKU.
NET PROMOTER SCORES FOR FROZEN FOODS
CHICKEN & TURKEY
Tyson 3.0 percent
Perdue 16.3 percent
Store Brand/Generic (6.2 percent)
DINNER ENTREES
Stouffer's (20.9 percent)
Banquet (9.8 percent)
Lean Cuisine 11.9 percent
Store Brand/Generic (4.4 percent)
FISH/SEAFOOD
Gorton's 1.1 percent
Mrs. Paul's (6.5 percent)
Van de Kamp's 3.9 percent
Store Brand/Generic (1.2 percent)
ICE CREAM/FZ YOGURT
Breyer's 31.6 percent
Edy's 42.8 percent
Ben & Jerry's 48.9 percent
Store Brand/Generic 7.3 percent
PIZZA
DiGiorno 31.3 percent
Red Baron 16.6 percent
Totinos 4.4 percent
Store Brand/Generic 4.8 percent
VEGETABLES
Green Giant 32.9 percent
Birds Eye 24.2 percent
Store Brand/Generic 5.3 percent
Source: Consumer Intentions and Actions (CIA) Survey, our pals at BIGresearch
Last October's research also turned up some unsettling
news about the lack of brand loyalty in certain key categories. Here are the
percentages of shoppers who had "no preference" for a frozen brand
choice by category:
- Seafood, 65.9 percent
- Dinners/entrees, 54.7 percent
- Chicken & turkey, 54.5 percent
- Pizza, 52.7 percent
- Vegetables, 49.9 percent
- Ice cream, 44.8 percent
Within the categories, there was a direct correlation between high "no preference" percentages and low NPS numbers for store brands. Some 65.9 percent of seafood shoppers said they had "no preference" as to brand, and private label seafood had a negative NPS. Conversely, only 44.8 percent of ice cream shoppers said they had no brand preference, and private label ice cream had a relatively high NPS. Could this mean that some retailers have given up on producing truly high quality private label seafood, on the belief that they can't really make much of a difference to the shopper? Or that they invest more in coming out with good private label ice creams because they see them as potential differentiators for their stores?
Note: Net Promoter, NPS and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld