Cough-cold category preps for presumably weak season
There are three factors that will help shape the upcoming cough-cold season: supply chain, illness rates and regulatory climate.
First, there is the supply chain. Before last year, retailers had been drawing back on their initial stock buys for cough-cold supplies on account of a number of consecutive soft seasons, bringing supply much more in line with demand. Last year, the H1N1 scare caused many retailers to heavily buy early in the season. According to suppliers, many retailers were carrying approximately five additional weeks of inventory at the beginning of 2010 as compared to late January and early February 2009. Retailers began curtailing their cough-cold buys in December in anticipation of selling through inventory to historical levels by the end of the season.
However, the second half of the 2009-2010 cough-cold season never actually materialized. And without an H1N1 pandemic this year, cough-and-cold medicines will be going up against high sales hurdles over the first half of the season, and relatively weak comparable cough-cold sales over the second half.
Illness rates, the second factor, may continue to drop, thanks in part to an increase in cold-flu prevention awareness. Last year, the fear behind H1N1 may have resulted in a significant uptick in sales of cough-and-cold medicines, at least at the start of the season, but it also drove a significant amount of prevention awareness. In his public appearances around H1N1, CDC director Thomas Frieden emphasized the importance of having a sanitizer on hand. Sales of hand sanitizers since have been up significantly and may have even earned a permanent placement within future cough-cold planograms—or at least seasonal endcaps, as evidenced last year by the number of retailers who dedicated entire endcaps to sanitizers. A Target store in central Pennsylvania already has gotten a head start in this regard; an endcap of nothing but Germ-X hand sanitizer faced directly opposite the pharmacy pick-up counter in late July.
And projections for 2010-2011 illness rates suggested there will be relatively little change overall as compared to last year. “The recent indication from [Surveillance Data Inc.’s] FAN: They are predicting that [illness rates] will be the same level as this past year,” said Matrixx president and CEO Bill Hemelt during a recent conference call. “So that assumes a relatively weak season [for 2010-2011].”
Cough drop sales| VENDOR (BRAND)* | SALES† | %CHANGE VS. LAST YEAR |
| Cadbury Adams (Halls) | $165.9 | -2.0% |
| Private label | 72.5 | 3.8 |
| Ricola (Ricola) | 68.8 | 14.9 |
| Quigley (Cold-Eeze) | 21.4 | -14.1 |
| Blacksmith Brands (Luden’s) | 19.7 | -0.1 |
| TOTAL COUGH DROP SALES | $399.9 | 0.4% |
| BRAND | SALES* | %CHANGE VS. LAST YEAR |
| Private label | $155.2 | 10.9% |
| Vicks Nyquil | 88.9 | 4.4 |
| Children’s Tylenol | 34.7 | -15.4 |
| Theraflu | 32.1 | 13.3 |
| Benadryl | 30.9 | 0.4 |
| TOTAL LIQUID SALES | $605.7 | 0.1% |
| BRAND | SALES* | %CHANGE VS. LAST YEAR |
| Vicks Vaporub | $37.0 | -7.0% |
| Private label | 11.2 | 4.1 |
| Vicks Baby Rub | 6.1 | -3.2 |
| Mentholatum | 3.4 | -12.8 |
| Theraflu Vapor Patch | 1.7 | -21.7 |
| TOTAL CHEST RUB SALES | $60.2 | -6.1% |
| BRAND | SALES* | %CHANGE VS. LAST YEAR |
| Private label | $77.4 | 40.9% |
| Purell | 30.7 | -12.8 |
| Germ-X | 11.8 | 85.1 |
| Gold Bond | 4.7 | NA |
| Dial | 3.9 | 335.8 |
| TOTAL HAND SANITIZER SALES | $148.7 | 33.9% |
| VENDOR (BRAND)* | SALES† | %CHG VS. LAST YEAR |
| Reckitt Benckiser (Delsym) | $88.0 | 13.9% |
| Pfizer Consumer (Robitussin) | 84.9 | -4.8 |
| Private label | 77.2 | 9.3 |
| Procter & Gamble (Vicks Dayquil/Nyquil) | 42.1 | 6.4 |
| Novartis Consumer (Triaminic) | 6.3 | 69.3 |
| TOTAL COUGH SYRUP SALES | $316.4 | 6.7% |