Industry trends are showing private labels are attracting more consumers over brand names. In response, Brandweek published tips by Nielsen on how to protect your brand against a private label invasion. The tricky part is choosing your tactic.
Nielsen’s 10 tips for defense focuses on promoting a brand’s most appealing features. Of course, over promotions of every feature would end up confusing consumers instead of strengthening your brand. It’s best to determine the features that are most attractive and provide a competitive advantage. The only way to do this is through customer insight.
Strong and thorough research of what makes your brand more appealing than the competition will direct you to the best defense. French’s condiments used customer research to determine their best defense would be promoting the value in their brand. They are doing this by promoting larger containers with cheaper prices. French’s consumers are looking for the best value, in terms of quantity, for price. The brand could have focused on taste, brand history, or cross promotion with another brand. Instead, they relied on customer research to narrow the focus to the best approach.
If you want your brand to stand out from the crowd, measuring it’s performance with consumers is essential. Your going to be able to determine which features consumers will respond to the most, what promotions are worth investing, and where improvements could be made. Defending your brand starts with measuring your consumers.
What do you think makes brands appeal more then private labels?
