Total spend on advertising by the UK dairy industry increased 8% in 2015 to £137m, driven by large increases in spend in the cheese and milk categories, AHDB Dairy says.
The proportion of spend by category tends to be in line with the prevalence of brands in the market.
The yoghurt category typically spends the most, which is not surprising given the large range of brands in this category.
Alternatively, the cream and milk categories, which are dominated by unbranded products, account for the smallest portion of total dairy advertising spend.
During 2015, the largest increases in spend were in the milk and the cheese categories.
Both of these categories increased their outlay by £4m compared to last year, representing a rise of 49% and 20%, respectively.
While there was a substantial increase in the amount of money spent on advertising in the milk category in 2015, there was only a 1% increase in total retail milk sales.
This is likely due to the majority of expenditure directed towards supporting branded products which have only a small share of retail milk sales.
The milk categories with the most growth in retail sales during 2015 were filtered milk (4.8%) and soya milk (2.6%).
It is these segments which include the brands with the highest spend on advertising such as Cravendale and Alpro.
