The perfectly preened male stars of Love Island have helped fuel a boom in men’s skincare products with sales surging this summer.
The latest edition of ITV2’s hit reality show has been credited with helping to drive a 16% sales surge in men’s skincare products in the 12 weeks to 12 August.
The summer heatwave also provided a welcome boost to the grocery market as the British public spent an extra £67m on alcoholic drinks in July.
“Love Island not only tugged on shoppers’ heartstrings but also their purse strings,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, which produced the report.
In June, Superdrug – which has sponsored the last two series of Love Island – launched a campaign promoting the products “the Love Island boys will be using all summer”. These included avocado and manuka honey conditioner, beard oil, volcanic cleansing wash and charcoal toothpaste to get teeth pearly white.
“We’re the ones who have stocked the villa with all of the lotions and potions an Islander needs,” the company said. “One thing we can let you in on is the guys’ grooming secrets.”
Last month, AS Watson, the parent company of Superdrug, revealed a 16% jump in pretax profits to £93m and a 2.3% rise in revenues to £1.2bn last year, which it partly attributed to its tie-up with the reality show.
UK grocery market revenues were up 3.5% to £26bn year on year, as sales of booze soared during the heatwave in July along with non-alcoholic beer, up 58%, and soft drinks, up 28%.
Figures from rival market research firm Nielsen show that the grocery sector’s growth rate in the four weeks to 11 August jumped to 4.2%.
Nielsen’s report found that across the period buying habits changed significantly. The football World Cup provided a boost to sales of fresh meat and alcohol in June and early July as barbecues and parties proved popular to celebrate England’s success.
However, after the football tournament ended on 15 July – and the hot weather persisted – shoppers swapped steaks for salads as fresh fruit and vegetables also enjoyed a boost, with sales up more than 4%, washed down by a rise in soft drink sales.
Nielsen said that growth is expected to be maintained in the second half of the year, at about 3%, in contrast to last year when volumes of products sold declined.
“The next few weeks will now set the tone for the rest of the year. Shoppers will return from holiday, kids will go back to school, and there will be a return to more usual shopping patterns,” said Mike Watkins, the UK head of retailer insight at Nielsen.
“Retailers and brands will begin to invest more in targeted promotions around upcoming events such as back to school, Halloween and Christmas to encourage incremental spend.”
Britons’ willingness to spend big on summer treats, including ice cream and savoury snacks, helped push the growth of branded products over supermarket own lines for the first time in three years.
One of the biggest winners has been the Co-op, which experienced its fastest rise in sales in almost seven years at 7.8%. The report attributed this rise, which equated to more than 260,000 additional shoppers coming through its doors, to a preference for consumers to nip into their local convenience store when the sun is shining.
Morrisons regained its position as the fastest-growing of the big four supermarkets, with sales up 2.7%. The grocer added more than 230,000 new shoppers, two-thirds of whom were among the more affluent bracket.
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