Walmart is leader of the promotional retail pack

MINNEAPOLIS — According to Kantar Media’s Marx report, retailer promotion activity continued to grow with a 21.6% increase to more than 11.3 billion pages in the first half of 2013, with Walmart leading in retailer activity.

Following on Walmart’s heels were Walgreens, Target and Family Dollar.

Seven of the top 20 retailers more than doubled their pages circulated in the first half of 2013. Walmart increased its pages circulated by 40.3% to 3.6 billion pages. Family Dollar had the largest actual decline in pages circulated among the top ten, down 37.1% in the first half of 2013.

“[Freestanding Inserts], which reach an average of more than 70 million households on a specific Sunday, remain a significant advertising vehicle for both manufacturers and retailers to influence consumer behavior,” said David Hamric, general manager, Marx. FSI coupon activity increased 3.3% based on coupons dropped during the first six months of 2013 versus the same time period a year ago.

During the first half of 2013, more than $247 billion in consumer incentives were delivered via FSI coupons in Sunday newspapers, up 8.8% from the same period in 2012. During the same six-month period, more than 153 billion coupons were distributed within more than 112 billion FSI pages.

FSI coupon average face value increased 5.3% to $1.61 for the first half of 2013. Average expiration dropped to 7.1 weeks, down 5% versus a year ago.

In the first half of 2013, non-food categories distributed more than 96.1 billion coupons, up 4.7% versus the same time period in 2012, while food categories distributed 57.2 billion coupons, an increase of 1.4%.

Rounding out the top 10 in first-half promotional activity were Safeway, CVS Pharmacy, Dollar General, PetSmart, Vons and Kroger.