Good Enough.
No, I'm not going to tell you how to keep it kinky. Rather, I'm going to highlight the indicator of customer satisficing that I referred to yesterday. It is that sales of own-label goods in the US are growing at almost twice the rate of big name brands and account for some 16% of all consumer packaged goods sold in America today according to A C Nielsen. This is replicating an existing trend in Europe where the figure has approached 40% in some countries.
Smaller manufacturers copycat a succesful branded product at a much lower cost, due to reduced overheads and research and development budgets. Consumers know this isn't the real thing, but frankly they don't care because food isn't remarkable enough to pay double the price for the branded product. The lower cost option is good enough.
Food isn't remarkable - so creating a brand isn't enough - in fact it's irrelevant. Create something good and the "brand" will follow, but in an age of copycats and deflationary price competition, it will have to be very, very good and you'll have to be permanently committed to improvement in every aspect of your business.
As Roy Disney, guardian of arguably one of the most resonant brands of all time, memorably said brand "means all the things we're not....We're in people's hearts, people's souls. Calling it a brand demeans it."
posted by john dodds @ 3:57 AM
3 Comments:
...what was that grocery store that produced and sold only their own brand...?
No idea, but it's an intriguing concept and an example of sheer bravura taking my point about choosing your customers to an extreme degree. You can only be my customer if you buy what I tell you. Oh - so you don't want to be my customer on those terms.....
i wish i could remember. but it did staggeringly well. the people, they loved it. the market, was baffled.
Post a Comment
<< Home