Introduction Store brands saw a rise during the recession, but many consumers continue to buy them. With the recession over, consumers purchase store brands for different reasons other than cost savings. Store brands are now competing with national brands. Both, store and national brands, need to focus on what they can do for their consumers and offer them value plus brand promises. How is this accomplished? This paper explains the causes behind the rise of store brands and how national and store brands create brand loyalty by focusing on consumer needs as they compete for consumers, along with how brands achieve success.
Rise of Store Brands When the recession began, consumers purchased store brands because they cost less than the national brands. As the economy rebounds, many consumers still choose store brands. Cost is not as relevant now. Some consumers found store brands are better than the national brands. One consumer enjoys the not as sweet taste of Target’s store brand apple juice over the national brand, Motts (Karp, 2012). Price is not an issue as many store brands become specialty items (Karp, 2012). Many stores are expanding their lines of private labels by adding new flavors and creating new packaging (Karp, 2012).
The same companies used by national brands manufacture most store brands (Karp, 2012). They have the same ingredients, but different labels. Most consumers do not know this. How does one know when they are able to purchase the store brand over the
Most successful businesses today actively develop loyal customers who buy their brands again and again. After all, getting current customers to buy more is much easier than constantly seeking new customers. Think of three brands that you buy on a regular basis. Why do you stick to these products? How could another company dislodge you?
The recession, which started in 2008, has helped drive the need for private-label products, or as they are more commonly called, store brand products. These private-label products generally cost the consumers about twenty-five percent less than the major national brands that are offered. Throughout the supermarkets and other types of food retailers, the private-label sales grew by more than 9% from 2008 to 2009, and these types of private-label sales accounted for about 35% of Kroger’s overall sales. Most stores do not operate their own processing plants for these private-label items; Kroger does however operate their own plants for the private-label products. [ (Senauer & Seltzer, 2010) ]
By not needing to maintain a high profit margin on the fooditems, this has allowed the supercenters to keep their food prices down in comparison with mosttraditional supermarkets.The recession, which started in 2008, has helped drive the need for private-label products,or as they are more commonly called, store brand products. These private-label productsgenerally cost the consumers about twenty-five percent less than the major national brands thatare offered. Throughout the supermarkets and other types of food retailers, the private-labelsales grew by more than 9% from 2008 to 2009, and these types of private-label sales accountedfor about 35% of Kroger’s overall sales. Most stores do not operate their own processing plantsfor these private-label items; Kroger does however operate their own plants for the private-labelproducts.
Richard Bell describes four stages that business strategies use today to grow larger and faster, as well as attracting and keeping customers. List these four stages, and discuss in detail how an International retailer would apply these today?
I would have searched online and read product reviews, seeking out friends’ opinions before switching brands.
The second force that I will use to analyze the Trader Joe’s company is the “the rivalry among established competitors”. Factors to consider when looking at the rivalries in the industry are industry demand, cost conditions, and exit barriers. Trader Joe’s competitors include The Kroger Co., Whole Foods Market, and Safewat Inc., and all super markets in general (Llopis, 2011). With that said, there seems to be a high demand for what Trader Joe’s offers, private labels. This means that the intensity in the industry is less compared to an industry with a flat demand. Trader Joe’s does not have to fight hard to sell their products because of the service they have created. Trader Joe’s brand can be considered “diversity on steroids” which has somewhat of a cult following among consumers (Llopis, 2011). Consumers that want unique experiences with their food are able to do exactly that at
According to Keller(1993) the effective brand positioning gives a brand a competitive advantage or “unique selling proposition” that determines a reason why consumers are buying this product or service (Keller, 1993). Similarly, Kay (2004) argues that brand’s strength depends
Also, a brand name tends to have a little bit higher quality of products than the generic version. While the generic may list the exact same ingredients, it may not be as good of quality which “could” affect the taste. The individuals that usually buy brand name products have a tendency to believe they must buy them in order to get good quality. Meaning of course better quality is overall “better” in taste and health. Although, the qualities of ingredients between products are almost always identical to one another, making this argument nearly useless.
In order to create brand equity, a company must partake in designing influential marketing campaigns that allude to their products being superior than those of competitors. This can be achieved through promoting attractive, clearly identifiable and memorable offerings to customers. When acknowledging how an effective marketing mix can influence a brands equity, the importance of differentiation between competitive offerings becomes critical, particularly when companies are present within the same market (Wood 2000). This concept can be linked to two of Australia’s leading supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, as the lack of diversity between each brand develops risks associated with maintaining high levels of brand equity and financial values. With comparable marketing mix approaches, Coles and Woolworths have implemented very similar forms of promotion, product, place and price methods. It is through strategically combining these four
Best Buy, a familiar retailer in the technology world, is struggling to stay on top. Online and mass stores have cornered the market in terms of convenience, customer service and price matching. The recent closing of over two hundred stores alongside falling sales has experts predicting that the giant won’t be in business long. Using a results-only work environment (ROWE), Best Buy has removed the customer from the equation and forced many employees out. A marketing disaster, Best Buy must change its marketing strategy from sales-based to a customer-based to stay afloat.
To understand the role of H-E-B’s Own Brands, we need to understand the role of private labels to a retail store. Retailers manufacture carry private brands since retail gross margins in the private labels are relatively high. Retailers are able to realize cost advantages since they do not have additional advertising and distribution costs associated with private labels. In addition to increasing profits, store brands help to attract and retain customers. Retailers however need the critical procurement revenue from national brands for ad space and displays on stores and hence need to maintain a balance between their Own Brands and national brands.
Crooks gain large lump sums of goods and services from brand name companies that are more likely to use celebrities to advertise for them. Imitators hit big well-known companies because they would be willfully giving, if they think that a famous person would want to advertise their brand. So they profit on asking brand name companies for merchandise. Sharks prosper massive amounts of goods and services through targeting a familiarized company. Scammers accumulate goods and services from top notch companies since they are more likely to believe that celebrity would ask for it. Pretenders attain expensive goods and services by relaying to a widely known company that a famous celebrity is interested in testing or trying the item out. Thus, con artist go for big because companies believe that those celebrities would want to have that brand in their possession. With today’s new strands of technology it is very difficult for companies to depict if that celebrity wanted their products, goods or services.
1. A brief history of the brand: origins, key stages in its growth , etc.
Brand Equity is the added value endowed by the brand to the Product. Although the idea of using a name or a symbol to enhance a product’s value has been known to marketers for a long time, brand equity has gained renewed interest in recent years. Brand managers realize that after years of look-alike advertising and over copying with me-too brands, they now live in a world of product parity. The ensuing price competition through short term price promotions reduces the profitability of brands leading manufactures to examine ways to enhance loyalty toward their brands. In addition, facing with the increasing power of retailers, manufacturers of consumer products realize that having the
The term “Brand Loyalty” also called as “Customer Loyalty” has been in the business industry since a very long time as a model to be used in conducting business. But it wasn’t until the mid to late 1900’s that the term was actually given its due importance by making it a vital part of advertising and marketing. The concept of marketing evolved substantially from being focused on sales of a product to having Customer satisfaction to be its focal point. Studies further revealed that there was a positive correlation between customer satisfaction and Brand Loyalty.