Hershey Goes Beyond Seasonal Peaks to Cultural Tentpoles
The Hershey Co. has shifted its retail activation strategy to focus more on “cultural tentpole moments,” creating more durable and consistent engagement rather than relying solely on the traditional peaks and valleys of seasons.
Speaking this month at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference, President and CEO Kirk Tanner said consumers need to see Hershey’s relevance in stores:
“Cultural moments are so important to consumers and our retail partners. When you walk into a store, you want to see the relevance of what's going on in the world, what's going on in our country here, and that shows up in these cultural tentpole moments.”
Hershey has always been great at seasonal execution, Tanner said. “The opportunity was, you had these peaks and valleys. So in between the seasons, there were opportunities, and there were big cultural moments — like the Fourth of July is a big cultural moment. … The Fourth of July happens every year, and that's relevant for both our confection business and our salty snack business.”
Another example, fall football is a repeatable tentpole moment where consumers gather. Hershey can execute against a moment like this with its broad portfolio of products.
“But those are repeatable things. Now, we'll opportunistically take advantage of the Olympics or any other cultural moments that fit — our World Cup for example,” Tanner said. “This will be a skill ongoing that we build so that we're kind of always on with our capability, versus peaks and valleys, because our resources are in the marketplace to do just that.”
Speaking about Hershey’s consumers, Tanner said that they have been resilient, and that its brands are performing well across income cohorts and across channels.
“If you break it down and start with the low-income consumer, they're adapting,” he said. “There's movement within channels, and there's more frequency going to convenience and online and into dollar stores. They continue to look for lower price and smaller packs as they're doing that, but they're eating more at home.”
Tanner said that low-income consumers in Hershey’s categories are growing at a higher rate than the mid- and high-income consumer. “High-end consumers are also adapting more frequency in mass, online, club, larger packs, more value from a price per ounce standpoint. But we continue to see good participation across the all consumer cohorts.”
