Jan-Jaap Jansen – Perfetti Van Melle

Perfetti Van Melle is a global FMCG company, specialising in sugar confectionery. Today, it is one of the world’s leading confectionery manufacturers, operating in over 150 countries worldwide. The company’s portfolio includes global brands like Mentos, Chupa Chups, Smint, and many regional favourites.

In this interview, Jan-Jaap Jansen, Trade Marketing Manager Benelux & Export Markets at Perfetti Van Melle, dives into strategies for brand growth, innovation and promotions for impulse purchase categories. Key topics include promotional strategies, the significance of e-commerce, and the necessity of measurable outcomes for continuous improvement and strategic and tactical decision-making.

Harnessing Innovation for Brand Growth

As an FMCG manufacturer with a broad product portfolio within sugar confectionery, market success “starts and falls with strong brands.” The brands have a strong position in many countries and Perfetti Van Melle also invests a lot in branding and innovation. According to Jan-Jaap, innovation is an important driver for brand growth. With a strong innovation programme, Perfetti Van Melle helps increase its market penetration and consequently also market share, as these two “usually go hand in hand.” A strong innovation aids in keeping sugar confectionery attractive and dynamic for customers, shoppers and ultimately the end consumer.

It starts with a category-first mindset with the aim to fuel insights-driven growth. “We have strong research programs which i.e. identify category white spots. This is where we apply focus on where and how to play with the ultimate goal to keep the category healthy and enticing,” Jan-Jaap says. ”Essentially, you want to keep the category attractive striking a balance between keeping the current category assortment performant and the addition of new product development to continue to bring existing and convert new consumers to the category. Being an impulse category, we have to make sure we find the optimal combination between Point of Sale, demand and offer to drive interaction with this conversion,” he continues.

“Being an impulse category, we have to make sure we find the optimal combination between Point of Sale, demand and offer to bring existing and convert new consumers to the category.”

The Essence of Sales Activations and Promotions

With confrontation being a key driver promotion also plays an important role for the category, Jan-Jaap reveals that for Perfetti Van Melle there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all promotions, but that it is critically important to understand the needs of the retailer and its shopper, the effectiveness of various mechanism in those environments and of course the role that brand promos can play for fueling category growth.

Important to recognise is that a lot of the products that Perfetti Van Melle offers are impulse purchase-driven products. The brands should be salient, though the category very often isn’t a (pre-store) planned purchase. The positive thing about this is that these products are up until now relatively unaffected by inflation, as the “out-of-pocket is relatively low for most of these kinds of items compared to other categories.” Also, “indulging yourself even in tough times remains a fundamental need,” Jan-Jaap describes.

A good example that Jan-Jaap picks up is the mint pastille brand Smint. As with any other brand, Smint also needs promotions, but at a time they were forced to do fewer promotions on the brand, and yet, they continued to see growth.  We have to remember that even though important, promotions or sales activation is not the only lever for brand growth, “In the end it comes down to making sure all the relevant boxes are ticked which individually defer per segment and brand on efficiency and effectiveness,” Jan-Jaap says.

“To have the right offer in the right place with a limited amount of space. Well, that’s still a puzzle, but it’s fun. That’s what we like to think about.”

The challenge on the other hand is to create brand experiences in supermarkets as the in-store environment rapidly changes. For example, staffed checkouts were key areas for impulse categories, but with self-checkouts becoming more popular, we see fewer offers of impulse products in those areas. Even though a job to be done it also underlines that we have to make every POS maximally count. “The shelf remains an essential part of sales for sugar confectionery and must be 100% in order, Jan-Jaap emphasises. Perfetti Van Melle invests a lot in hardware and presentation to make products attractive and enhance the shopping experience. “It must deliver, demonstrably deliver. That’s also measured.” Jan-Jaap concludes.

Here Jan-Jaap highlights the importance of shopper research. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to gain insight into which product placements work best for what type of product, and strategic and tactical decisions are made based on the data. As an impulse-driven category, the shopper experience matters a lot for shoppers and consumers. There are only a few moments in the shopper journey where a segment or brand can break through the clutter to capture the moment of truth and give shoppers a good feeling that’s also just fun or refreshing but above all, tasty.

However, the shop floor is also a very fleeting phenomenon, and thus the balance between sales activation campaigns and brand building sometimes becomes a bit blurred. According to Jan-Jaap, both breaking through the clutter and building your brand is important, and ultimately it’s a certain combination of products presented in a certain way that leads to a higher conversion. Otherwise, it would “not make sense to invest in promotions either from the retailer’s or manufacturer’s side,” Jan- Jaap says.

“The shop floor is a very fleeting phenomenon. So you might wonder if you ultimately do brand building, that’s the tricky part.”

Strategic Channel Management and E-commerce Dynamics

Further, the interview sheds light on the complexities of channel management and the nuanced approach to e-commerce. Perfetti Van Melle has several people specialised in e-commerce. However, presenting impulse products in an online environment is not a copy-paste from the ‘live in-store’ environment. Relatively speaking standing out, different shopping behaviours for example with bulk packs (less relevant for impulse categories), and just stimulating impulse behaviour overall work differently. According to Jan-Jaap, this is still an area where Perfetti Van Melle is experimenting a lot.

Channel management, doing the right things in the right channel, therefore is incredibly important for increasing market share and penetration. “In our category, you have to be present everywhere. And the moment you’re present everywhere with the right product propositions remains the quest, it is about continuously tweaking and learning,” Jan-Jaap says. Of course, the strategies may vary from retailer to retailer depending on their goals, shoppers and specific category opportunities and challenges, but in the end, we want the have the right assortment everywhere for every customer and shopper.