Insights into the chocolate category in Saudi Arabia

And the average consumer of chocolate claims to consume 4.8 times a week, proving the popularity of chocolate amongst Saudis.

The chocolate category in Saudi can be segmented in two ways - either by the form of chocolate or by the flavour of chocolate.

In terms of chocolate forms, the most popular ones are Finger Chocolates (like Kit Kat) and Count Lines (like Mars, Bounty) with 50+% claiming to have consumed them in the last 30 days. Other forms of chocolates have lower incidence of consumption. Tablet chocolates (like Nestle Classic) have an incidence of 11%, Gift chocolates (like Galaxy Jewels, Ferrero Rocher) 6%, and Small bites (like Hershey's Kisses, M&M's) 5%.

The most popular flavour is chocolate with any nut based ingredients with 39% claiming to have consumed such chocolate on the last occasion. The other popular flavours are butterscotch/ praline/nougat chocolates and bitter chocolate with 29% and 19% respectively claiming to have consumed them on the last occasion.

Marketers would no doubt love to hear that it is brands which drive choice, but the data tells a different story - whether analysed by behavior or attitude.

Analysis of the last 3 chocolate consumption occasions reveals that on average each consumer had:
- 1.8 different brands
- 1.5 different forms
- 1.4 different flavours.

This implies that repertoire at the brand level is the highest, followed by form and then by flavour. A converse implication would also be that loyalty to a particular flavour is stronger than loyalty to a particular brand.

Loyalty indicators also confirm the above. The Total Loyalty Score (% who pledge their allegiance to only one type) is 17% at the brand level, whereas at the flavour level the corresponding number is 50%. This illustrates the large gap that exists between loyalty to flavour vis-à-vis loyalty to a brand.

The above market characteristics pose some interesting challenges for marketers of chocolate: how does one increase brand share in a market with such low brand loyalties?

One possible route would be to own particular flavours of chocolate in the consumer mind space. The key would be to identify flavours that have a fairly large following amongst consumers in order to make it profitable for the brand to own the flavour, followed by focused marketing efforts communicating brand superiority in that flavour. Of course, then the underlying assumption is that the brand can deliver real product superiority over the rest of the brands in that flavor.

Making brands/sub brands generic to specific flavours might also be a winning strategy in this category.