Significant growth for Asda wine sales

Published: 23 July, 2008

Asda experienced double digit growth in its wine sales over the Christmas and new year period thanks in part to a new TV advertising campaign featuring Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt.

David Stewart, category director for beers, wines and spirits (BWS) at Asda, said today: "At Asda we had our busiest Christmas ever, and BWS was no exception. Particular sales highlights include Champagne, cider, rums and vodka.

"Wine at Asda is experiencing a real turnaround and saw double digit growth over the Christmas period. For the first time, Asda invested heavily in wine advertising on television featuring James Nesbitt to drive awareness, in particular of the innovative mini-tasters range, allowing shoppers to trial slightly more expensive wines at no risk.

"The premium Asda Extra Special range of wines has also been developed and extended this year by Asda's Master of Wine, Philippa Carr, to critical acclaim by the national wine press.

"This range of activity, demonstrating Asda's commitment to wine, is encouraging shoppers to spend extra time in the aisle even during the busy Christmas shopping period. It is interesting that following the widely publicised sale of Dom Perignon at 30, one of the largest challenges for our distribution and in-store teams was keeping enough premium Champagne on shelf for our shoppers.

"Within the overall BWS category, the final three months of the year saw record-breaking sales across the beer offering and 2007 represented our third successive year of share growth. Our premium Extra Special spirits range were launched in late summer in preparation for Christmas and saw sales of over 1m over the holiday period.

"From this strong base, we are looking to continue to strengthen our Extra Special range and offer great value across big brands for shoppers throughout 2008."

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