Pattison Food Group is now part of Air Miles

Though it broke up with Sobeys and its family of grocery banners this year, Air Miles landed a bit of a make-good when it reached a deal with Pattison Food Group, which counts well-loved Western Canadian discount grocer Save-On Foods among its store banners.

The partnership did not replace Save-Ons existing “More Rewards” loyalty program. Rather, CMO Dan Howe said it was an opportunity to create a “win-win” for customers by giving them another opportunity to benefit from personalized offers and rewards.

The shopper trends that will shape the rest of the year

There’s no rule saying the predictions have to come right at the beginning of the year. WGSN waited until the first quarter of the year before releasing its predictions for how the last nine months of the year would shake out.

So how did WGSN do? Well, in hindsight, the importance of omnichannel retail and buying trends being driven by viral content seem like no-brainers, but Canadians becoming even more value-conscious ended up being extra prescient.

Lay’s is bringing joy to Chinese Canadian shoppers

Early this year, Lay’s expanded its roster of flavours with two varieties specifically created to appeal to Chinese Canadians: Cucumber and Chicken & Tomato.

Though the launch and corresponding shopper marketing campaign were timed to coincide with Lunar New Year, the new flavours are not a one-off attempt to get some good will with Chinese Canadians, but a long-term investment. That included a great deal of insight work to decide which flavours to launch, breaking from its Canadian brand system to create packing more in line with what would be found in China and targeting marketing efforts to stores and channels that over-index with Chinese-Canadian shoppers.

Nutella has ‘on-the-go’ market in its sights

Ferrero has traditionally kept things simple for its Nutella brand, selling one thing: tubs of Nutella. But that changed this year as the company saw an opportunity to reach more on-the-go snackers with B-Ready, a bar shaped like a loaf bread but stuffed with the hazelnut spread.

The shopper campaign announcing its arrival to Canadians featured a full compliment of in-store assets. It also allowed the company to take the strength of the Nutella brand name and bring it somewhere it had never been before: the check-out lane, reaching impulse shoppers.

How Tim Hortons is driving trial for its new ice cream

After trying its hand at breakfast cereal, Tim Hortons found its way into another aisle of the grocery store this year. In the spring, it launched a lineup of five ice cream flavour based on recognizable items, like Iced Capps, Fruit Explosion Muffins and Double Chocolate Donuts.

Sourabh Mali, VP of Tim Hortons’ growing CPG business, said the company saw an opportunity to take its well-loved brand and bring it to a category that showed a lot of resilience during the pandemic. And the roll-out, at least in its initial phases, didn’t include any shopper marketing assets or discount programs to drive trial. Rather, it was leaning on brand recognition and packaging design to get a place in consumers’ baskets.