Carol Spieckerman

CPGmatters: What Are Top Ten Best Practices for Private Label Promotion?

June 21, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Increasing store brand sales calls for building innovative marketing strategies. The best way to do that, says Professor Mark Lang of St. Joseph's University, is to borrow a page from the brand manager's playbook. In what areas do you think private brands of supermarkets most lag behind national brands?      [more...]

Retailers may not need to be reminded to borrow a page from brand managers' playbooks...they've already borrowed entire chapters! All of the points mentioned are currently being leveraged by private brands (though not necessarily embodied in one power brand example).

Where I see private brands lagging national brands is long-term planning. I see no problem promoting a private brand on price alone if that is the long-term vision for the brand; however, singular private brand mega-launches can run into trouble when the weight of the world is placed on them, yet brand proposition is less than straightforward. Walmart's Great Value comes to mind here though I'm hesitant to criticize what by most accounts has been a tremendously successful revamp. However, as much as Target has been dinged for its food program, you have to give them credit for creating clear private label tiers that offer good, better, best wiggle room (Market Pantry, Archer Farms and Archer Farms Simply Balanced) rather than relying on one mega brand then compromising the integrity of it through price tweaks and course corrections.

I would add "play nice" to the list which brings up the darker side of Target's Up & Up brand. Target's item-for-item comparison call-outs on the packaging of select items (I still haven't figured what drives these inconsistent decisions) feels unnecessarily paint-by-numbers and even hostile to national brands.