Event Recap: The Private Brand Movement
The Private Brand Movement held in Chicago September 28-29th, provided knowledge and information on private brands, and more specifically the shift of private labels into private brands. Additionally, a focus of many sessions included fundamental strategies for retailers o improve or introduce private brands and ways to manage these brands.Major recurring themes that emerged throughout the event included: consumers’ acceptance of private brands, own brands become more than just national brand equivalents, and private brands are here to stay.
Shift from Private Label to Private Brand
Though the recession helped growth among many private labels, private label growth began before the US recession. As consumers began to purchase private label products, they started to accept them and even became pleasantly surprised with many products. Initially, private label products were retailers’ efforts to offer products that were equivalent to national brands, at a significantly lower price. This started as a short term solution to boost profit. However, as consumers increasingly purchase private label products, retailers have begun to take notice and are stepping up efforts to evolve their private label offerings. Within the past year, several retailers have relaunched their private label products to become true brands. These include Target, Safeway, Duane Reade, Bloom, Walmart and Kmart.
Success in Private Brands
In order to be a successful private brand, retailers need to implement several strategies to engage customers and encourage trial and repeat purchase. Retailers need to manage private brands as brands rather than products, they need to focus on the customer and introduce products to help meet their needs and provide solutions for them. In addition, differentiation and innovation will be keys to successful private brands. Not only will consumers continue to seek value, but unique products that they are not able to find elsewhere. Differentiation will come in a variety of ways including innovative packaging and design and new products.
The Future of Own Brands
Retailers will continue to look for opportunities to expand or introduce private brands in many categories. They will no longer replicate national brands, rather focus on innovation to create original products. The look and feel of packaging must also be compelling. The old generic black and white look of store brands is completely outdated. Upgraded packaging will create visual appeal and will resonate well with shoppers. Retailers have a great advantage in uncovering customers’ needs through their own network of shoppers. They will use insights gleaned from consumers to help develop products and promotions around them. Consumers will seek authentic products, value is no longer compelling enough, they desire experience and authenticity when shopping for products in a crowded marketplace.
This post was provided courtesy of Ali Lipson of Euromonitor.
Don’t Let The Movement Pass You By
The following is a guest post from Perry Seelert the strategic partner of the New York City based strategic branding and design firm united*. Perry presents his insights and learnings from this past weeks groundbreaking Private Brand Movement Conference in Chicago.
The Private Brand Movement conference was insightful in a number of ways, but here is quick “take” on what it brought to light that felt different than other conferences and shows past. The overarching observation, though, is that the “new school” for Private Brands is starting to overtake the “old school”.
New School – Sees Private Brands strategically, where points of difference are truly developed, innovation plays an integral role, and are not just seen as a “value” play Old School – Sees Private Brands through functional eyes and more as “products” vs. “brands”, where imitation and NBE rule the day, innovation is left to the leading brands, and private label is purely a margin/value play.
Transcending F-D-M:
Another key takeaway was that in this Conference, you felt like the world of Private Brands transcended the Food-Drug-Mass channels, and this was exciting to see. There was a real diversity of attendees from Golf/Sport, Home Improvement, Dollar and Office channels, and while this interest was encouraging, it does beg the strategic question of what categories, destinations and “anchors” will you own in the consumers’ minds, as a channel and as a retailer. It cannot be just what’s available from the manufacturers; rather, the destinations you create in the future will guide the product development process.
Building A Voice:
A further separation at the Conference between the new and old schools is the emerging belief that a brand’s voice is developed by more than just the visual language and design. It used to be that Private Brands were just happy to address the aesthetics – colors, cues, typography and iconography, and they had to be mindful (and many were too mindful) of the leading national brands. Well, that dynamic is changing. When enlightened companies are developing a brand language, it is visual, verbal and structural, and these elements are all considered within the story of the brand. Many presenters at the Conference indicated this was starting to happen, not perfectly, but at least starting to. But even more important, the voice of many Private Brands is being transmitted beyond the package itself, within event marketing, through social media, interactively, through the store environment and across advertising. This is new for most. Taking advantage of this more expansive voice is the easy part, doing it creatively and with a unique idea in mind for your brands will be the challenge. Doing it with an emotional voice will further separate you from the pack.
Innovation:
It is clear from the Conference that the one area for growth is the idea of innovation, even though it was talked about a lot, because the degrees from “incremental” to “breakthrough” are subjective retailer-to-retailer. Personally, I don’t think the product innovation really has to be breakthrough in all cases, in fact, I think focused innovation is better. If retailers had 3-4 big product ideas where they forcefully and consistently told the consumer unique stories, this would have a huge halo effect on the store. Premeditated innovation, not innovation by happenstance, is what everyone should be concentrating on, and doing it in the 3-4 places that reinforce your points of difference and/or destinations will have a huge impact.
Next steps for the conference in 2011 will be to make it more global, even more cross-channel, and more granular in discussing how innovation can come to life cross-functionally. But 2010 was definitely a success, with a new school emerging around Private Brands that gives us all a lot of motivation to do more and hope for the future.
Perry Seelert is the strategic partner of united*, an award winning branding and design firm co-founded in 2006 with Lawrence Haggerty and Andy Johnson. united* has been embraced by many of the world’s most influential companies because of their unconventional approach to design. A&P Supermarkets, North America’s first chain grocery retailer and largest in metro New York, teamed up with united* to develop an array of revolutionary brands which have transformed the way shoppers are thinking about Private Brands. He can be reached at perry@uniteddsn.com.
This post was brought to you courtesy of Christopher Durham, President & Blogger-in-Chief, My Private Brand. Christopher is The Private Brand Movement 2010 Conference Chairman.
The Private Brand Movement is All the Buzz
The history making Private Brand Movement Conference continues to receive alot of press, it is exciting to note that there were press in attendance from many trade magazines and websites including: Private Label Buyer, Private Label Magazine, Super Market News, Store Brands Decisions and Retail Wire. You can read all of Carol Angrisani’s coverage for Supermarket News on their blog Total Access. Here is a sample post.
Premium Products
Sam’s Club made a strong statement in private label this year when it introduced an ultra-premium vodka called Rue 33. Sold under the chain’s Member’s Mark label, Rue 33 is a refined wheat vodka from the Cognac region of France. A 1.75 liter bottle sells for $28.
The goal was to offer a private-label spirit that represents the highest of standards at a great value.
Sam’s Club is now using that strategy is other categories.
The latest news is that it’s wooing high-end beauty buyers with Sophyto, a professional, natural skincare regime.
“Every Sophyto anti-aging product delivers professional results, yet is formulated with pure, natural ingredients,” according to marketing materials.The Sophyto “daily renewal” kit sells for about $30, and includes a cleanser, serum and moisturizer.Maurice Markey, Sam’s vice president of private brands, mentioned Sophyto in a presentation at the Private Brand Movement conference.Both Rue 33 and Sophyto make it clear that Sam’s Club is positioning itself as a destination for the most discriminating of shoppers. It’s a smart move, because while there, these buyers can load their carts with the many other products Sam’s Club sells.
Read all of the Supermarket News coverage.
This post was brought to you courtesy of Christopher Durham, President & Blogger-in-Chief, My Private Brand. Christopher is The Private Brand Movement 2010 Conference Chairman.
Walmart Evolves Great Value Design Strategy
Here is another installation of my thoughts and observations from this past week's Private Brand Movement Conference in Chicago. In a last minute addition to the speaking roster Michael Ellgass the Director of Grocery Marketing, Walmart presented “Great Value Relaunch: Connecting the Brand to Save Money, Live Better” The presentation was an engaging look at the ups and downs of the Great Value launch and growth over the last year. Mike was refreshing in his candor he frankly discussed the learning’s and mistakes of the relaunch of Great Value and presented the updated color guidelines that both brighten the stark white design and increase its shopability. It is exciting to see a major retailer not only recognize their mistakes but adapt their go forward strategy.
Note in the slide above he also presented a sub brand of Great Value – Lean Cafe this addition to the strategy presents some interesting opportunities for Walmart to increase selection perception in the sea of Great Value.
Mike continued his candor in an extended question and answer session that included questions on both Sam’s Choice and World Table.
This post was brought to you courtesy of Christopher Durham, President & Blogger-in-Chief, My Private Brand. Christopher is The Private Brand Movement 2010 Conference Chairman.
Kmart Announces Launch of Smart Sense at The Private Brand Movement Conference
The Private Brand Movement Conference concluded today with a series of panels and great presentations. I will continue to post insights from the three days over the next week as well as a few videos of presentations.
In exciting news yesterday, Kim Coovert, Brand Manager – Own Brand Food & Drug for Kmart, presented a first look at their new mid tier Private Brand Smart Sense. The brand was designed by New York based design agency CBX and is a brighter, fresher take on Private Brands than Kmart has seen in years. The new brand includes a range of items including everything from snacks and beverages, to oral care, paper products, household cleaners and over-the-counter medications. The quality of the Smart Sense line is comparable to that of national name brands, and on average costs 20 percent less.
The launch of the new brand includes a fully integrated web and in store campaign featuring a $15,000 sweepstakes that gives away a three-year supply of Smart Sense products.
According to a press release from Kmart: “With the introduction of the Smart Sense line, Kmart is looking to offer a more affordable Kmart brand product assortment that will rival the quality of more nationally recognized brands,” said Mark Snyder, chief marketing officer, Kmart. “While the Smart Sense line will offer the everyday essentials, Kmart is also taking it a step further by providing unique products that you wouldn’t typically expect to see under a store brand.”
The Smart Sense line currently consists of hundreds of products available in Kmart stores and the product line will expand to more than 1,200 items by early 2011. Kmart will also support the Smart Sense line launch through multiple communications channels, including advertising, coupon offers, merchandising displays, sampling, digital marketing and event marketing.
In addition to the introduction of the Smart Sense line, a new look has been created for many other Kmart brand products. The brighter and more vibrant packaging has been designed to capture the “colorful thinking” Kmart is demonstrating through its new product and brand announcements. 
In addition to the Smart Sense line roll-out, Kmart is also introducing products in a re-launch of its other exclusive brands, which include, Little Ones baby care products, Champion Breed pet care products, Image Essentials personal care products and VitaSmart vitamin products.
This post was brought to you courtesy of Christopher Durham, President & Blogger-in-Chief, My Private Brand. Christopher is The Private Brand Movement 2010 Conference Chairman.
The Private Brand Movement Continues with Sam’s & Ahold
The Private Brand Movement Conference continues with an exciting couple of days from the worlds largest retailers. Kmart, Target and Walmart all presented their groundbreaking Private Brand work and the crowd responded with lively conversations around each. I will post more on the events as time permits, in the meantime here are a few snapshots from the groundbreaking conference.
The Power of Articulating Your Brand Promise was presented by Matt Biespiel, Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy, MCDONALD'S CORPORATION
Stephen Gates the Senior Creative Director, STARWOOD HOTELS & RESORTS presents a lively discussion on, Transforming a Design Team into a Brand-Building Design Force
A CONVERSATION WITH…IDEAS, STORIES & PERSPECTIVES
Design & Packaging Roundtable: Stepping Out of Brand Name Shadows
Panelists included:
Maurice D. Markey, Vice President, Private Brands, SAM’S CLUB, WALMART STORES, INC.
Melissa Smith-Hazen, Director, Strategic Design, Corporate Brands, AHOLD USA
Moderated by Felicia Rogers, Executive Vice President, DECISION ANALYST
This post was brought to you courtesy of Christopher Durham, President & Blogger-in-Chief, My Private Brand. Christopher is The Private Brand Movement 2010 Conference Chairman.
The Private Brand Movement Pushes Change: Day One
The 2010 Private Brand Movement Conference began yesterday morning in the Sax 
Hotel in Chicago, with more than 150 retailers, suppliers, agencies and press from all around the world.
Attendees included:
Ace Hardware Corp, ACNielsen, Ahold USA, Ampro Industries, Angilella Design S.A. de C.V., Anthem Worldwide, b2 Retail Solutions, Barkley, Birdsong Gregory, BNP Media, BrandImage, Burnette Foods Inc, Cabela’s, Canadian Tire Corporation, CBA Brand Ignition, ConAgra Foods, Cuddeback & Company LLC, Daymon Worldwide, Decision Analyst Inc, Delhaize Group, Design Resource Center, Deutsch Design Works, Dole Fresh Vegetables, Dollar General , DowDesign, Downlite Company Store, Dragon Rouge, eMart, Emotional Branding, Euromonitor International, Family Dollar, Flood Creative, Group360, Groupe Catalpa Inc, Hallmark Cards Inc, Henkel, Henkel Corporation, Hershey, Home Depot, Karlin Foods Corporation, Kendal King Group, Kraft Foods Inc, LL Bean Inc, Lowe’s, Marketing Support Inc, MARS Advertising, Mars Petcare USA, McDonalds Corporation, Meijer, Midmark Corporation, Nellson Nutraceutical LLC, Newmarketbuilders, Nice Pak Products Inc, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Pearlfisher Inc, PETCO , PETCO Animal Supplies Inc, PetSmart, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, Pigeon Branding & Design, Princess Auto, Private Label Buyer, Private Label Magazine, Procter & Gamble, Prophet, Queue Marketing, REI, Safeway, Sam’s Club, SCA Tissues North America, Schawk, Schwanns Consumer Brands North America, Seal Strip Corporation, Sears , Sensory Logic, Smart Design, Smurfit Stone, Sonoco, Speaker Bureau, Specialized Technology Resources, Staples, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sterling Brands, Sun Products Corporation, Supermarket News, SuperValu Inc, Synovate, Target, TEAMS Design USA, Tetra Pak Inc, The Shear Partnership, Tobii Technology Inc, True Value Company, Turner Duckworth, United, Vestcom International Inc, Voicebox Creative, Wallace Church Inc,
The day began with a presentation from Scott Davis the Chief Growth Officer of PROPHET and author of the Shift. Scott offered this quote about Private Brands to begin to conference: Scott presented the groundbreaking work from his book as well as the following observations:
"I do not believe in Private Brands, we do not call them that in my house; in my house they are our favorite brands.”
“Where you guys are today is where the cable industry was three to five years ago to the networks.”
Scott went on to talk discuss the role that “visionary” marketers have in companies
These visionaries have made five important shifts:
First Shift: From creating marketing strategies to driving business impact
Second Shift: From controlling the message to galvanizing the network
Third Shift: From incremental improvements to pervasive innovation
Fourth Shift: From managing marketing investments to inspiring marketing excellence
Fifth Shift: From an operational focus to a relentless customer focus
Store Brands Update: Where Are Trends Heading Now? Was on tap next with an insightful look at the research and trends from Lisa Rider the VP Retail Marketing for THE NIELSEN COMPANY. Lisa presented a challenging perspective on the continued growth of private brands in the grocery sector with a projected .2% growth rate over the next five years. The challenge I have to this statement is simply that it is based on retailers doing what they have always done; if they can build great brands and engage customers the sky is the limit.
Next up was Matt Biespiel the Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy for MCDONALD’S CORPORATION his presentation “The Power of Articulating Your Brand Promise.” He showed the continuing development of the McDonalds brand and it’s implementation throughout the world. Although McDonalds does not seem directly relevant to Private Brands the audience was engaged and excited by the brand building of America’s fast food brand.
Stay tuned for more from the conference.
This post was brought to you courtesy of Christopher Durham, President & Blogger-in-Chief, My Private Brand. Christopher is The Private Brand Movement 2010 Conference Chairman.
Breaking News: Walmart to Present at the Private Brand Movement Conference
Michael Ellgass, Senior Director of Grocery Marketing, Walmart
Get the inside scoop on how Walmart rebranded the world’s largest CPG brand. See the advertising that is attempting to evolve it from thrifty alternative to the everyday presence of the Walmart brand.
Session: Tuesday, Sept. 28th at 4:25 pm
"Great Value Relaunch: Connecting the Brand to Save Money, Live Better"
It's not too late to register for The Private Brand Movement! Visit the event site to download the brochure, check out our speaker line-up, and register to join us in Chicago!
The Private Brand Pulse: Maurice Markey, Vice President, Private Brands Sam’s Club
Leading up to The Private Brand Movement event next month, we invited a few of our excellent speakers to discuss their roles within their organization and their presentations at event. We had a chance to talk with speaker, Maurice Markey, Vice President, Private Brands at Sam's Club. Maurice is responsible for leading the strategic development and growth of Sams Clubs proprietary Private Brands; to include Members Mark®, Bakers and Chef® and ProForce®. He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Maurice will participate in the discussion, "Design & Packaging Roundtable: Stepping Out of Brand Name Shadows" at The Private Brand Movement, September 27-29, 2010 at Hotel Sax in Chicago.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The Private Brand Movement Preview: McDonald’s and Brand Promise
What is your brand doing to articulate it's promise to customers at every touch point? Find out how McDonald's uses its brand promise to connect with customers and differentiate the brand across all customer contact points. Matt Biespiel, Senior Director of Global Brand Strategy at McDonald's will share insights on how to create a singular brand strategy, articulate the brand promise and translate it into the marketplace. You will hear examples of how McDonald's has led every touch point to ensure they are delivering the brand promise.
Join Matt at 11:30am on Monday, September 27 during day 1 of The Private Brand Movement. Download the brochure to learn more about the amazing speakers and companies joining us this year!