The Ins and Outs of Private Label Brands
Posted by Universal Ad at Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:06 AM and is filed under Store,grocery,Branding 
We're continuing round-up week with a few articles on private label brands - but only for those of you who are back at work (if not - get back to enjoying your vacation and stop reading this blog!) :
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- New and Improved Private Label Brands (AdWeek) - As national manufacturers struggle to connect with
consumers through increasingly fragmented media, the retail environment
has become the new battleground for shoppers who once believed private
labels sacrificed quality for economy. Store brands are fighting big
brands in several key ways: a new sensitivity to consumers' changing
lifestyles; quick-response times; stylish packaging; and higher-quality
ingredients. One new development: U.S. retailers are offering an
increasing number of tiered private-label options, a strategy
well-entrenched in the more sophisticated U.K. private-label market.
- Store Brand Strategy (Grocery Headquarters) - Nowadays, more retailers continue to expand their assortments of store brands by adding organic, ethnic, gluten-free and gourmet lines. Meanwhile, quality has improved to such an extent that store brands are often the products of choice for discriminating shoppers. “The retailer is trying to tell the consumer that this is not a one-product offer, but rather an offer that extends over a range of products. It permits packaging reinforcement so a consumer sees a sub-brand, and then sees another product with the sub-brand, and feels the product is good. It’s a fairly standard concept of branding and sub-branding, playing off what a consumer knows. The retailer is now doing what once only the national brands did.”
- Private Label Could Erode National-Brand Sales (Supermarket News) - A new McKinsey report identifies several key retailers that “have successfully used private label as a key differentiator and to build consumer loyalty.” These retail leaders have an average private-label dollar share of 22%, well above the industry average of 16%. Moreover, these “share leaders” have posted higher levels of overall sales growth versus non-leaders: 5.3%, vs. 3.4% over the past three years.
- Beyond National Brand Equivalent (RetailWire) - For years, retailers have touted their private label products as "national brand equivalent or better." But until recently, they've been a lot more "national brand equivalent" than "better." Oh sure, the Wegmans and Trader Joe's of the world have been beating the national brands at their own game for as long as anyone can remember. But the rest of the retailing community has been slow to jump on the bandwagon. Why such reluctance to stray from the national brand standard?
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