Air Care Category Report

Air care products smell good to consumers, and manufacturers and retailers savour their sweet bouquet of profit.

Jonathan Mitrovich’s space analysis reports for the grocery industry tell a long term success story. In 1995, 15 to 20 air care product listings occupied two shelves. “It wasn’t one of the big movers,” says the vice president of Proforma Consulting. Ten years later, stores may carry 200 air care listings on 20 linear shelf feet.

Fragrant results from an ACNielsen report on this product category for the 52 weeks ended October 1, 2005 support Mitrovich’s observations. Overall sales shot ahead 12% over the past year to an all-channel total of $171,437,768. All-channel unit sales rose five per cent to 57,229,185.

Traci Wildish, Category Sales Manager - Air Care for SC Johnson - Canada, notes that air care sales can still grow much more, since only penetrated 55% of households currently buy them.

To explain these growth trends, Christa Swirla, Customer Marketing Manager with Reckitt Benkiser, states: “Launching new fragrances is key to keeping current consumers involved within the category and to attracting new consumers as well.” Scent delivery methods have also multiplied. These now include timed delivery, simple evaporative units, candles, aerosol, fan ventilators, concentrates, and toilet rolls. Tony Duarte, Grocery Manager at Longo’s Supermarket in Markham, Ontario, notes that many consumers kill two birds with one stone when they buy combination air care/night light products. Also, while his customers devour air care product stock, they make choices based on allergies or concern for the ozone layer, so stocking different types of products means that people will find something they like.

Wayne Leighton, Category Manager for Co-op Atlantic, claims that new items drive sales growth of air care products. In Leighton’s experience, “You got to be out there with them early because of all the heavy advertising that the vendors do on them,” he says.

Swirla says category sales growth relies on three factors. First, manufacturers must provide consumers with new reasons to use air care products. Second, vendors need to persuade buyers to use air care products in more places, like other rooms, vehicles and workplaces. Finally, transaction prices rise when retailers let their customers catch a whiff of premium products.

In Duarte’s view, the home décor trend influences air care product purchases. Distinctive colours and intriguing shapes characterize products on his store’s shelves. “Everybody wants to be an interior decorator,” he says.

Mitrovich encourages manufacturers to produce more such products to capitalize on this trend. He adds that air care may be the most “innovation-prone” category today. “Along with the innovation comes a certain clientele, the early adopters, the people who want to buy anything that’s new and exciting,” Mitrovich says. “There’s a lot of trial in this category.”

Amalia Kyriacou, Director of Communications for Food and Consumer Products of Canada (FCPC), adds that consumers want features in air care products that also matter in household cleaning products: convenience, hygiene, and speed. People buy these products to help them speed clean their homes, she says.

Data from the ACNielsen Homescan 2004 National Consumer Facts report provided to Canadian Grocer by Reckitt Benkiser shows that 75.3% of Canadians purchased an air care product that year (up from 74% in 2003). They returned every 47 days for another product (down from 52 days a year previous) and spent 8.8% more each trip. Reckitt Benkiser foresees 2006 sales of $217 million for air care, disinfectant and air treatment products combined.

Kyriacou also confirms this growth trend. Quoting from a State of the Industry Report prepared by ACNielsen, Kyriacou states that for the year ended September, 2004, sales of air care and potpourri grew 17 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively. (Potpourri was a $13M category at the time of the report. Total air care sales amounted to $148M.)

Greg Hudson, Assistant Store Manager in Charge of Dry Goods at Zehr's Market, Highland Hills, Kitchener, has noticed this sales trend. His staff replenishes shelves more often. Air care products often occupy Hudson’s profit panels, flanking end displays. Duarte receives five orders a week to keep the section stocked. He also puts packaging displayers in several spots around the store. Joyce Law, Public Relations Manager for Proctor and Gamble Canada, likes this strategy. “Air care is an impulse purchase category,” she says, saying products should go both on shelves and in several in-store displays to maximize sales.

Stating that consumers shop for air care like they do for health and beauty products, Law recommends “vertical by form” shelving to help consumers find what they want. In addition, she notes: “ Consumers want a product that eliminates odours and freshens the air but not a strong perfume that just covers up odours. ” Since single scents can quickly bore buyers, Law mentions Febreze NOTICEables, a new air care product. This scented oil warmer alternates between two scents every 40 minutes.

Citing a 2004 Conjoint analysis in the UK, Swirla writes that consumers want better fragrance control and speed of fragrance delivery, to cover up occasional smells like smoke and litter box odour. Reckitt Benkiser made the Air Wick X-press Scented Oil air freshener to meet this need. Its key feature: a button that starts a silent fan for ten minutes to increase fragrance by 100%.

Mitrovich sees a large variance in retail prices, which range from about one dollar to $30 (the average is about $5.00), while Leighton notices major manufacturers are abandoning low-cost air fresheners in favour of higher-end products, where they smell better profitability.

Electrical air care units contributed $85,607,676, half of all revenue dollars and 13% more than last year. Unit sales rose 8% to 16,144,861. They now produce 28% of total unit sales for the category.

Wildish says that the new electric portables segment (including Glade Wisp & Air Wick Mobil’Air) provided $10 million in growth.

Much like water filtration products or inkjet printers, consumers must buy refills to use electrical air care products. Unlike water filters or inkjet cartridges, however, scent manufacturers have more room to innovate, so new scents regularly tease consumer nostrils. The challenge for grocers, says Mitrovich, is to remind customers to buy refills.

Law writes that aerosols are the fastest-growing segment in air care. The data shows that sprays (excluding disinfectant sprays) generated 20% of total revenues for the category, but spray sales skyrocketed 55% over last year’s results to $34,352,562. Unit sales increased 26% to 17,942,829, to finish the year at 31% of all air care product units sold. Leighton says. “As a company, we’ve always done well with aerosols.”

New to the category are automatic sprays. Dollar sales ($2,322,382) and unit sales (215,759) add to one per cent of each total for the category. Low results for these products stem largely from the fact that they first came to market partway through the 2004-2005 sales year. “I didn’t do a lot with them,” Leighton admits, citing the newness of the market for not tracking them more closely. He also says the ones he does carry have been selling reasonably well.

Sales of solids hold steady. Even though dollar sales declined two per cent from the previous year to $15,244,344, they still account for nine per cent of the category’s revenues. Unit sales fell one per cent to 12,324,288.

Scented candles dipped in both dollar sales (six per cent to $9,572,145) and unit sales (18 per cent to 1,921,293) from the previous year. Candles account for three per cent of total air care product unit sales and six per cent of total dollar sales. Despite falling sales results, Mitrovich, Leighton and Wildish like this segment. Mitrovich finds new candle innovations “very intriguing”, while a new candle product, Glade Scented Oil candles, have “taken right off” in Leighton’s stores. Wildish’s data says that consumers are bundle-purchasing Glade Scented Oil candles; retailers sell at least one refill with each candle.

Originally published in Canadian Grocer Magazine

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