Don't rest on successes, speaker says at PLMA Expo

Whether it’s national brands or private label products, many of the challenges are the same. Private brands have made great marketing strides in recent years, but the slow-recovering economy is forcing products across the store to make every marketing dollar and every expressed benefit count in the battle for market share.

Product manufacturers that want to work better with retailers should not take any of their successes for granted, Michael Sansolo, Contributing Editor of Morning News Beat, told a breakfast audience at the recent Private Label Manufacturers Association Expo in Rosemont, IL, according to an article on the Euromonitor Global Market Research Blog. Gains can be fleeting, Sansolo said, because no brand marketer is going to surrender market share without a fight.

Sansolo suggested that brand marketers first need to understand consumer complexities and competing interests they consider while shopping. They want, for example, packages that save them time in food preparation, but not at the expense of taste. Elsewhere, smaller packs are achieving success by answering an immediate consumer need, from convenience to portion size.