Global confectioners Mars and Nestle need to drastically improve their online presence to compete with high street brands like Thorntons and Hotel Chocolat, a report revealed.

Search specialist agency Epiphany Solutions analysed the confectionary companies’ online presence following results from its recent SuperBrands survey that saw smaller brands outperform giants such as of Nike and Sony.

The search analysis of the UK confectionary market revealed that global players such as Mars and Nestle were falling behind due to a perceived over-reliance on their brand name and lack of investment in online presence.

Shane Quigley, Chief Executive at Epiphany Solutions, said the results are a warning to global companies to overlook online presence.

“In this digital age, its compulsory companies effectively engage with their customers off and online”, he said.

“The results should also be encouraging for those smaller companies who believe that the online marketplace has already been monopolised by the big brands.”

Worth over £4.4Billion per year, the UK confectionary market is dominated by Mars, Nestle and Cadbury, but Epiphany’s analysis of keyword searches found that neither Mars nor Nestle ranked higher than thirtieth in the organic listings for their key search terms.

In contrast, confectioner Thorntons registered in the top 30 for an enviable 84 per cent of the same keywords.

Overall, visibility for the company was bettered only by online chocolate retailer Hotel Chocolat. Full results of the analysis can be found at:
http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/market-insight/industry-sector-reports/thorntons-and-other-online-chocolatiers/