By / Perry Seelert

Simplicity and things that are simple are embraced by consumers today, and it is no wonder why. Literally everyone feels his or her life is too hectic, overwrought by schedules, overrun by trying to achieve work-life balance, overtaken by an array of products that are not intuitive and foods that are too complex.

Today, less is truly more, and the consumer seeks simplicity at virtually every turn. For retailers and FMCGs that are research-driven and looking to uncover consumer desires, frustrations and beliefs, the need for simplicity is seen in their qualitative focus groups, and many have taken it to heart.

My observation within retail is that many retailers have already latched on to this consumer truth, and they are saying it quite literally in their marketing and brand nomenclature. But bringing “simplicity” or “simple” to life can be more than just saying it and pasting it overtly within your brand naming.

Just look at the “simplicity”, “simple” and “simply” branding rage over the last couple years within retailer brands.

Aldi just launched “Simply Nature” and Target just restaged “Simply Balanced”. Stop & Shop and Ahold USA just launched “Simply Enjoy” and Kroger launched “Simple Truth”.

And let’s not forget “Simply Less” (Coles Australia), “Simply Valu” (Cash ‘n Carry), “Simply Right” (Sam’s Club/ Walmart), “Simply Nourish” (Petsmart) and Simply Chardonnay (Tesco). Please don’t write me if you identify another, as these are just the ones I have seen.

The FMCG brands are no exception here, with Simply Orange, Pillsbury Simply, Simply Organic, Keebler’s Simply Made and many others. It is “Simply” too much!

We could probably have the same conversation about the words “honesthonestly” and “basic-basically” too, but we will leave that for another day!

The retailer and own brands of the future don’t just follow branding trends, they lead them and exploit the idea beyond just the brand name, and what it says. Ikea is a retailer that is built on simplicity, yet rather than it translating just to what they say, it comes to life through their packaging, materials, and most of all through their step-by-step instructions. Consumers’ heads spin when it comes to complex instructions where there is always a part or step missing, and Ikea leveraged that throughout their whole product strategy.

Nest, which was just purchased by Google, is brand that is also built on a beautiful simplicity, whereby mundane products like smoke detectors and thermostats don’t have to be such ugly anchors in the home. Their simplicity is ringing true through the product’s design, and it is no accident that Google, a brand also echoing simplicity, was the purchaser.

Simplicity can be executed and come to life at retail through various ways – through product assortment at shelf, at the in-store checkout, and through e-commerce. The idea of simplicity is still one to be leveraged, through retail and through retailer brands, but you don’t necessarily have to embed it into your verbal language so literally. You will be better to give it meaning in many more ways in the store that your shoppers and consumers value even more than the name itself.

Perry Seelert is retail branding and marketing expert, with a passion for challenging conventional strategy and truths. He is the Strategic Partner and Co-founder of Emerge, a strategic marketing consultancy dedicated to helping Retailers, Manufacturers and Services grow exponentially and differentiate with purpose. Please contact Perry at [email protected].

By / Richard Kohn

Even though the economy is improving and unemployment is declining, figures show that the growth of private label and retail brand purchases continues. CPG brand managers who have been telling their bosses (and shareholders) during the recession that volume will pick up again once the economy turns have to find a new excuse for the failure of their marketing budgets to capture the imagination (and share of pocket) of consumers.

The truth is there’s no way back. Private label share, captured during the downturn will not be easily given up by retailers – and for good reason. As a retailer, private label (be it traditional retail branded, tiered assortments or venture brands) are very seductive. And what’s not to love?

Shelves filled with products that sell in very high volumes promoting the strength of the retail brand, delivering significantly higher margins and utilizing the marketing spend of big brand manufacturers to pull growth in the category. For retailers, it’s the perfect storm… and that’s before we even consider the competition amongst manufacturers clamoring to supply these ever increasing sales volumes.

It’s not just a great deal for the retailer. Our consumers benefit massively through high quality alternative products which are often more innovative and always offered at a lower price.

So far, so good. This might appear like the start of a manifesto for all retailers to forsake CPG brands and go their own way. There are successful examples of retailers that have: Marks & Spencer, Waitrose (UK), Hema (The Netherlands), Mercadona (Spain) – before we even start to consider the discount powerhouses of Lidl, Aldi and Jeronimo Martins, however, even these chains understand that there is a place for big brands.

As retailers we appreciate that we cannot have it all our own way. We do need the big brands with their global marketing budgets to develop and grow the categories in which we offer our own brand products, and while there is short term an attraction of loading shelves with our own products we all know this is not sustainable long term.

We need the brands to survive and to be strong. We need them to sell products with premium pricing and create consumer demand through their marketing campaigns. We need them to have space on our shelves so that consumers have real choice when they shop in our stores.

Without their developments, innovation and investment there would be significantly lower overall category growth from which we benefit.

Operationally, it’s a challenging balance to achieve. Exactly how much of our ‘real estate’ do we give to the developer and how much do we retain as land owner. Seductive as it may seem, the old maxim still stands. It’s much easier to get products on to the shelf than off. So beware the seductive private label temptress, unless you are careful, she’ll lead you astray.

Richard is an expert in global marketing and an acknowledged strategic brand leader. He currently heads the private label division at one of the largest retail pharmacy groups in Europe. He’s held senior management positions in A brand CPG companies and led international marketing and strategy teams across CPG, consumer durable and business services companies. He’s also the European client partner for a leading brand excellence training institute which delivers brand and communications courses to Fortune 500 companies. Richard is dedicated to bringing the discipline and science of brand marketing and marketing communications to private labels, empowering them to cultivate critically essential marketing management competencies to lead them to build leadership brands. [email protected]

By / Richard Kohn

Reading marketing communications from any sizeable retailer you’d be excused for thinking that ‘Choice Quality and Value for Money’ is the standard retailers’ mantra: from Jeronimo Martins and Lidl to Tesco and Carrefour consumers receive the message that this is the mission of their favorite retailer.

Obviously, the private label offering sits within that positioning … normally as the paramount example (tiered of course through good, better, best and niche) of their choice, quality and value for money assortment.

Yet, the go to market concept, positioning and strategy of each of these retailers is widely different, as is the range and assortment available in their stores. So what’s going on here? An average Tesco store supports 30,000+ skus, the average Biedronka only 5,000. So in one case we assume it’s consumer choice and in the other choices made on your behalf by the retailer. In one case the range of different quality offerings is clear, in the other we assume that the retailer has specified a quality product.

Once upon a time, Choice, Quality and Value for Money were differentiators for retailers. This was an insight driven phrase with significant resonance with consumers. Over time however, the insights behind this promise have become less relevant and now, Choice, Quality and Value for Money are standard entry requirements for any retailer. This happens in many product categories – think for instance about the time when Soft strong and long meant something in toilet paper: now it’s simply expected by the consumer as a cost of entry to the category.

Why is all of this so important in private labels? Because private label and retail brands have the potential, when positioned correctly, to achieve the same level of consumer loyalty as well promoted, national brands. As we move out of the period of economic uncertainty and restraint, private label offerings have to be more than me too products to retain sales once consumer confidence picks up. They have to offer more than choice, quality and value for money.

Consumers expect to see and experience strong product positioning in everything that they buy today. It’s a key decision made during product development and one of the most challenging operational decisions commissioning buyers should consider pre-launch. For private label manufacturers it will be increasingly important to come to your retailers with a good, compelling story why the consumer should buy your version of the product. If not, who cares if it offers Choice, Quality and Value for Money.

Richard is an expert in global marketing and an acknowledged strategic brand leader. He currently heads the private label division at one of the largest retail pharmacy groups in Europe. He’s held senior management positions in A brand CPG companies and led international marketing and strategy teams across CPG, consumer durable and business services companies. He’s also the European client partner for a leading brand excellence training institute which delivers brand and communications courses to Fortune 500 companies. Richard is dedicated to bringing the discipline and science of brand marketing and marketing communications to private labels, empowering them to cultivate critically essential marketing management competencies to lead them to build leadership brands.

[email protected]

By / Koen de Jong, Managing Director at International Private La bel Consult (IPLC)

Over the past two decades, private label food products have grown substantially in sales and often directly compete for market share with national brands. Competition between private labels and national brands within the store (intra-store competition) generates consumer welfare through lower overall prices and greater choice for shoppers in the supermarkets.

The average consumer does most of its shopping on auto-pilot. Statistics show that only 18% of shoppers have a list, meaning 82% of purchases are done from memory or prompted when in store. This makes it all the more important for a retailer to invest in attractive and consistent packaging design. Attractive to allow for effective competition with the national brands and consistent to navigate the consumer in his decision making when in the store thus reducing shopper stress. At ’the zero moment of truth’ when the product is about to be taken off the shelf, appealing pack design may be critically important.

More interesting is it to note that Private Label also has a strategic role in the competition between stores (inter-store competition). It allows the retailer to differentiate from other supermarkets as the assortment, prices, product quality and packaging can all be tailored to retailers’ specific needs, allowing them to offer something unique.

A while ago I met with a relatively small sized retailer in the Netherlands insisting on having a unique private label of its own. I argued that product volumes to be sourced would be very modest due to the limited number of stores. Therefore, buying conditions probably would appear to be unattractive making a launch not viable. I was surprised by his answer as he explained that although he realized buying prices would by considerably higher his company still wanted to move ahead as the overall objective was to have a unique private label range thus allowing for an independent pricing strategy of its own.

The opportunity to differentiate from the competition was considered of strategic importance for which he was willing to pay a price. We have supported this retailer as our client and launched a limited number of SKU’s in selected categories. With a packaging design carrying the store banner brand and in line with the store identity the products really stand out on the shelf and are easily recognized by the shopper. It is yet too early to evaluate but the first results seem to prove that this retailer is doing the right thing.

By / Perry Seelert

As consumers, we are exposed to as many as 20,000 different messages a day, and actually see about 250 of them, so how do we make sense of this marketing assault to the senses? If you are a marketer of a brand, or particularly a retailer brand, how do you truly get your message heard amidst this clutter? The old way of thinking from an own brand point of view would be to rely purely on your value message. The thought was, if placed correctly and adjacently at the shelf, you didn’t need to do much else. Just let the price comparison do the heavy lifting, and that is persuasion alone, right? Wrong. To succeed in the new world of retailer branding, you need to think and behave like a brand, and here are four keys to address the Density Dilemma

Be Distinct >>

The more distinct and crystallized you are in your brand positioning, the better you will be, but this is a tough thing for many retailers or brands to rationalize. After all, wouldn’t it be best if everyone loved me and shouldn’t I cast the widest net? I have found that many retailers define their points of difference by claiming “most convenient”, “best service”, “greatest value”, “freshest perimeter”, or “widest selection”. When you claim all of these attributes cumulatively, it becomes too many to be credible, and the result is a vanilla, bland positioning. Seek out the most impactful point of difference and really own it. Brands like Toyota (reliability), Target (fashion-forward) and Disney (imagination) all have oneword equities, and the question is, do you?

Ensure Consistency >>

In defining who you are and the points of difference that make you special, you then have to express it through language, and do it consistently. When we work with retailer or CPG brands, we describe five different dimensions that we call the language of the brand. Each brand should have a visual, verbal, structural (if your brand is packaged), environmental (how and where it lives) and personal (your customer service) language. Most importantly the five dimensions need to be consistent in their overall tone of voice. Apple is a great example of a brand that is synergistic in its equity expression, which could be defined by words like “simplicity, modernity and intuitiveness”. At every visual, verbal, structural, environmental and personal turn, the language of the brand is consistent.

No Gratuitous Density >>

It is key to not try to claim too much in your brand’s positioning, but it is also important not to say too much, especially things that are obvious and extraneous. This just compounds the Density Dilemma for consumers. Wegman’s brands their spring water under their “Food You Feel Good About” banner, and I have always thought this is painfully obvious. Flags, bursts, symbols and call-outs are often more distracting than clarifying. Orville Redenbacher popcorn makes a big point of calling out Gluten-Free, but popcorn by definition is gluten-free, so they are playing to the lowest common denominator in consumer knowledge.

Gut-Check Your Voice >>

As a retailer or retailer brand, the clarity of your voice and the language by which you express it is increasingly important, especially in a world that is not 100% driven by NBE thinking anymore. Gut-check your voice internally and also seek out partners that can guide this marketing exercise within your company.

The language of retailer brands is where we all can improve in the future. Don’t crowd your brand’s voice by claiming too much, and avoid the Density Dilemma at all costs.

Perry Seelert is retail branding and marketing expert, with a passion for challenging conventional strategy and truths. He is the Strategic Partner and Co-founder of Emerge, a strategic marketing consultancy dedicated to helping Retailers, Manufacturers and Services grow exponentially and differentiate with purpose. Please contact Perry at [email protected].

By / David Lopes, President & General Manager, International Private Brand Develo pment, Daymon Worldwide

The beginning of the year is always a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. When considering retail and the future of brands, what we know and experience today will not be the same tomorrow. The future of retail and brands will be rooted in trust. We live in a world in which institutions collapse and disappoint us, and thus the companies and brands with true staying power are the ones that are able to win the trust and hearts of their customers. This relationship is built not only by creating value and providing safety, happiness and enjoyment to consumers, but increasingly companies and brands are being judged on fair pricing, ethics and overall transparency. These are the matters that will become more critical in the coming years.

This holds true for private brands, as all regions of the world will continue to witness the development of own brands by retailers. This is a fascinating subject, however it has nothing to do with the traditional battle between manufacturer and retailer brands. Private brands will no longer be synonymous with low price and, likewise, industry brands will not have a monopoly on quality and innovation. The future of private brands has much more to do with the capacity to innovate, to offer a quality service linked to the product and sale, and to do all this in a continuous and sustainable way. The world that is emerging is a collaborative world; a world in which ideas and the capacity to implement them will define the leaders, more so than controlling the means of production.

However, producers too are in need of deep reflection. When, for example, we think of China, we think of the world’s factory, given its cheap labor. But we neglect to think that they are one of the most creative and flexible people in the world and that in the next 30 years they will, through internal economic growth, “lift” 300 million consumers into the middle class, equivalent to the population of the USA. It is a middle class which craves food security, and millions of producers with growing awareness that they will have to adopt rigorous brand management principles if they want to not only survive, but succeed, both domestically and internationally.

Another profound revolution shaping our interaction with brands is the way we relate to and influence others. Information is being made available to us without intermediaries. We are all writers and editors, spectators and protagonists. Throughout the world there is growing concern on the part of producers and retailers to incorporate this new behavior into their strategies. The challenge that lies ahead deals with owning the responsibility and the consequences of linking brands and companies to the consumer; knowing that he has a voice and an opinion and that he can use it in a more powerful way than ever before to either recommend or criticize.

So, what else does the future of retail hold? I see a scenario of continued consolidation by retailers, mainly in markets where the concentration is still not very high, and I see another phenomenon which is for me by far the most interesting and which is related to the attempt to discover new concepts, new formats, new channels. Half the world is trying to reinvent the traditional hypermarket. The other half of the world is testing online concepts and transforming supermarkets into a hybrid between a restaurant, a market or a café…I am sure that in the next five years we will see the appearance of new retailers and brands which will be successful but which we have not heard of yet.

By / Christopher A. Durham: President & Chief Strategist, My Private Brand

Much has been said over the last few years about the evolution of retailer owned brands from generic to private label to brand. However, the reality of that evolution is much exaggerated. The vast majority of retailers in the world are still trapped somewhere on the continuum between generic and private label. They are followers who fluctuate between mimicking national brands and other retailers.

The evidence is all around us – walk the aisles of any grocer in the United Kingdom, France or the United States, take a look at their private brand portfolio and look for strategic differentiation. Look for design differentiation. Look for product differentiation. You will quickly discover that despite the beautiful modern package design, there is a strategic uniformity and dull sameness that has invaded the retailers and ultimately destroyed differentiation. Continue Reading

By / Richard Kohn

Private Label products are always priced lower than branded equivalents – right? Often yes, but is that always the best policy? Should we not aspire to elevate the positioning of our private brands to make them more attractive?

Thankfully, private brand positioning has moved on from whitelabel, lowest price point pricing but the image still lingers in the mind of consumers that private brands are of lower quality than branded alternatives. This is partly driven by the pricing policy of category managers within retail who have a tendency to view private brand as the automatic choice for lowest price point products in their category. It’s partly driven by retailers (supported by manufacturers) believing that consumers are always looking for low priced products to fill their baskets. Continue Reading

By / Koen de Jong, Managing Director at International Private Label Consult (IPLC )

This May, I was a guest speaker at a symposium in the United Kingdom on invitation of The Institute of European and Comparative Law of the University of Oxford. Topic of this year’s event was: Trends in Retail Competition: Private labels, brands and competition policy.

The night prior to the event I stayed at a bed & breakfast in a little village near Oxford. As the lady of the house served scrambled eggs for breakfast she asked ‘would you be so kind to let us know how our eggs taste?’ As she noticed my surprise she explained: ‘we are comparing the quality of eggs of a few farmers in the vicinity to decide where to get the chickens for our newly built henhouse’. Continue Reading

By / Perry Seelert

What ’s Inside Drives What You See Outside

We live in a results-oriented world, and this is good as long as people understand that your outward performance is led by inner strengths. When the own brand industry refers to “best-in-class”, this is usually a discussion that focuses on the metrics and what we see in-store: who has the highest share, who has the most items, who demonstrates the greatest innovation? Continue Reading