If success leaves clues in a recent article at Mediapost.com by Karlene Lukovitz she quoted noted supermarket expert Phil Lempert saying “next year we’ll see major food brands developing co-branded private-label foods with retailers, meaning private-label foods featuring brands' key ingredients.”
If Phil is right there is only one clear clue. It's clear that brand managers of “legacy " national food brands have Failed. Yes, they missed the mark simply put they failed to keep pace with the consumer, quality, flavor profiles, price equilibrium and consumer relevance. This act is a simple act of marketshare capitulation by the legacy brand managers. It’s the easy way out blame the economy, point fingers and make excuses then join the other team.
What has happened is private label companies and products now have quality educated brand managers and they are doing a better job! Success does leave clues and the opportunity for good brand managers is growing with private label products.
Does it make sense to other industry proffesionals for food brands to take it a step further by providing ingredients for and co-branding store labels? Bill Cross, VP, food licensing for Broad Street Licensing, “says he can't imagine major food marketers engaging in this strategy, given that they're in a "dog fight" with retailers aggressively pursuing private-label growth.” Bill understands the value of a brand and how consumer relevance plays an important role. If you’re a brand manager in Grocerant ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat foods build your brand not your competitors.
Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche. View my complete profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or leave a comment or question below.
"Forget branding, concentrate on sales!"
ReplyDeleteBrands only thrive and survive by consumer purchase and trial. My bet is most any member of the manufacturing community would gladly co-brand their products onto a McDonalds menu except for a very small and tightly focused group of niche companies.
When I sold to McDonalds, our national brand items were sold without our branding for the most part. Consumers assumed they were purchasing a McDonalds branded product. We placed effort and achieved some recognition with the McDonalds consumer on our brand offering within McDonalds.
There are other examples that I can share to demonstrate this point with the largest food brand marketers in the USA.
Protection is like isolation and doubtful this concept overtime is going to reap any company value or strong profits in the future.