Innovative approach enhances brands and products in post-pandemic
period
DALLAS-FORT WORTH, Texas, June 2, 2020—
Two private brand companies have jointly launched a new benchmarking strategy
to enhance the position of retail private brands for a new era.
Many observers believe food
retail private brands will be in a stronger position in the post-coronavirus
period. However, that is more likely to happen if retailers and suppliers adapt
to quickly shifting consumer needs driven by the pandemic period and its
aftermath.
Solutions for Retail Brands
(S4RB) and Consumer Science have jointly launched a comprehensive new
benchmarking strategy called “Consumer Experience Score.” This involves a
novel, holistic metric incorporating attributes such as design, packaging,
sustainability and healthfulness, as well as traditional sensory and
performance measures.
Strategy Improves Retailer
Competitiveness
Retailers leveraging this
strategy, coupled with price comparisons, will benefit from enhanced insights
compared to traditional approaches. Traditional strategies compare private
brands primarily to national brands, or analyze only basic sensory attributes,
or just one category. The new framework will enable retailers to successfully
test a broader range of attributes against a wider variety of private brand and
manufacturer brand competitors. This will help retailers to pivot quickly for
changing consumer preferences, whether for value, premium or other directions.
Private brands have
benefitted from more consumer trial driven by manufacturer brand out-of-stocks
during the coronavirus period. While the conventional wisdom is that consumers
will seek more value items in the post-pandemic era, that’s not necessarily the
case, or it may not be true in all cases. Retailers will need to employ
improved private brand benchmarking approaches to ensure that all products
consistently deliver against their brand propositions.
Addressing Consumer Needs
Post-Pandemic
“Consumers will be more
interested in private brands going forward, so this is an ideal time for
retailers to boost benchmarking and fine-tune their brand value proposition,”
said Chandi Gmuer, Vice President of Consumer Research and Product Testing at
Consumer Science. “New kinds of benchmarking are needed to make sure strategies
are on target for consumers in this environment, as the discounters Aldi and
Lidl did so well back in the financial crisis of 2008.”
James Butcher, CEO of S4RB,
said the new approach will enable private brand teams to think differently by
delivering against a clear brand value/quality proposition.
“It brings a new standard
strategy across multiple categories, to help brand owners understand and
enhance their private brand propositions,” Butcher said. “This should all be
done in a collaborative way so that suppliers can work with retailers to ensure
products meet objectives.”
Research Uncovers Private
Brand Insights
The new strategy benefits
from Consumer Science’s testing expertise and S4RB’s ability to visualize
results in a way that informs better decisions on private brand positioning.
The companies used the benchmarking approach to conduct independent research
across a number of private brands, including those from Aldi, Albertsons, Ahold
Delhaize, Kroger, Target and Walmart. The research, available from Consumer
Science, identified a number of key insights about the state of U.S. private
brands through comprehensive testing across multiple categories. Among the
insights:
- The top scoring private brands are consistently providing the best overall consumer experiences at good prices across categories.
- Some retail brands are challenged by merely average experience scores coupled with higher pricing and disparity in brand value across categories.
- Some store brands aren’t getting credit for their strong consumer experiences because of less than inspired designs and too-few callouts on packages. For example, in ground Colombian coffee, a category often thought of as premium, products whose designs lacked innovation and seemed outdated received lower Consumer Experience Scores.
- At times a single attribute, such as texture or presentation, makes a big difference in which private brand items provide the best overall experience in a particular category. For example, the inclusion of croutons in some private brand Chicken Caesar Salad products represented a key differentiator by adding texture and crunch. In the Hummus category, decorative toppings made the difference for some items by boosting presentation.
- “Only through deeper testing and comparisons will retailers be able to fine-tune their private brand products to boost consumer experience,” said Gmuer.
About Consumer Science
Consumer Science is a team
of quantitative and qualitative researchers in the field of product integrity,
sensory perception and consumer behavior. It works with clients to provide
guidance for positioning, innovation and product improvement.
About S4RB
Solutions for Retail Brands
(S4RB) is a global, consulting-led software business with a track record of
successfully addressing the most complex and important challenges facing
private brand retailers. S4RB’s cloud-based Affinity platform boosts innovation
and speed of product development, retailer-supplier collaboration, and customer
advocacy.
Media Contact:
David Orgel, principal,
David Orgel Consulting davidorgelconsulting@gmail.com 917-699-8340
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