Rebranding Consumer Products —Being Different and Better
Rebranding consumer products. Everyone understands that when shoppers choose products off the shelf in a supermarket, the goal is to have your brand appear different and better than the competitive offerings.
But both these values serve different agendas. For the price-conscious shopper, better may mean cheaper.
It may mean higher quality, greener, or organic for the discerning shopper. Other brands target each of the myriad preferences. Often, the segments have brand extensions.
You need a powerful rebranding strategy.
Hellmann's
Take, for example, the highly competitive mayonnaise category. Hellmann’s, one of the dominant parent brands in the category, has line extensions in Light Mayonnaise, Olive Oil-based Mayonnaise: organic, canola, and even vegan.
But Hellmann’s is fortunate to have an influential parent brand. One that, for many shoppers, is preferred and trusted. For less emotionally intensive brands (like Kraft), all the sub-brands dilute the parent’s power.
But what is going on in the mayonnaise category? How is preference created, and how deep and resilient is that preference? We call that brand elasticity, an essential element when rebranding consumer products. Most marketers recognize price elasticity and have simple means of measuring it.
For example, they can test markets at various price points and measure the retention or drop-off in sales.
Testing your work
Research also tests it. Conjoint analysis is a valuable tool— but certainly less than perfect.
Question even a test market’s results. Why? Because price elasticity is not a singular entity.
Value is not always about price. It ALWAYS includes a heavy dose of brand affinity (when the brand positioning is correct). Just like price, you must view brand elasticity in the competitive context.
Stealing Share is eponymously named. Our name is what we do. If you are familiar with our strategic process in rebranding consumer products, you know we scientifically model the target audiences’ precepts.
Why? Because for a brand to disrupt the category and steal market share, it must OWN the highest emotional intensity in the category. Behavior Modeling gives us a predictive tool.
Highest emotional intensity
The emotional intensity (of great importance when rebranding consumer products) creates preference and cement brand loyalty like epoxy. And we can measure our behavioral modeling emotional intensity.
We can predict the brand’s success by measuring how intensely the target believes the value.
Once you understand the highest emotional intensity and align the brand’s position in that existing and powerful current, you are both different and better— by definition.
Today, most consumer product brands rely on digital marketing. They believe highly targeted ads are a better value than the more traditional route. This is a flawed strategy.
Traditional Advertising
Traditional advertising has the value of density. Meaning that you see the ad provides momentum and reinforcing power to its targeted digital siblings. Context— as in, all things create their influential power.
Marshall McLuhan was right. The forms and methods (the “media”) used to communicate information significantly impact the messages they deliver.
Success Leaves Clues
A proper strategy for rebranding consumer products in today’s market is to supplement digital marketing with more traditional methods.
The pharmaceutical companies understand this mix. They digitally target the defined target market and engage those prospects in conventional ways. Think about the advertising we have all seen for plaque psoriasis and COSENTYX.
Only 2-3% of the US population has the disease, so you would think that 98% of the COSENTYX advertising dollars are wasted. You would be wrong. That advertising adds density to the drug’s marketing and develops a strong sense of trust. Don’t confuse what I am saying with COSENTYX’s brand positioning.
But like all pharmaceuticals, they confuse brand value with outcomes. Outcomes ARE essential, but that value is a table stake in these categories.
When rebranding consumer products, BRANDING Matters
BRAND is the differentiator in consumer products, foods, beverages, laundry items, and consumables.
Marketers often confuse brand value by looking from the inside out.
“Here is what it means to us” is hardly essential. What it means to the prospect and customer is all that matters.
