Is there Value in Brands?

Can supermarket value ranges ever be a brand and should they try?

Let me start by explaining my thoughts on what constitutes being a brand. 

A brand is effectively your business, business is the first letter of the branding acronym and essentially the most important.  The company should be able to live the brand promise and thereby focus all the attention to a common goal. The brand is the business after all. 

 The consumer as a result should be able to recognise the brand and it's promise through the design, messaging, price, function and external engagement such as tv advertising and internet sites. I'm a strong believer that brands should contract their category and offer a single minded solution, the consumer will identify with any extra benefits and added value you give them, resulting in much needed brand equity but also category leadership, not to be confused with being the market leader.

What about companies that have multiple brands? The aim here is to ensure that each brand functions as a single business (that happens to use the same supply chain as other brands within the organisation). Where most companies go wrong is that they they also use the same sales, NPD, and insight teams who live the company and not the brand. The brand will naturally erode when this happens (there will be a follow up article on this point).

What about supermarkets?

Supermarkets are essentially distributors of products and therefore distributors of brands. That is only part true,  they are primarily distributors of their own brands given that 60% of the product stocked is their own label. Supermarkets operate on a Master brand structure. Every product carries the retailer logo and then sub branded accordingly(exception being Aldi).

With 1000's of products covering 3 price points - premium, mid-range and value and a multitude of categories how can we engage with the individual brands? We can't, it's impossible! The retailers have sub branded so much that you can actually buy 6 different types of Tesco Lasagne including Finest, Light Choices and Value. 

The retailers also know this when they advertise which is why the brand is represented as the service. Consumers pick a retailer based on location, price, quality of goods, service and overall experience. Advertising campaigns are always about promoting the service brand to make location less of an issue and price and experience more so. 

In these advertising campaigns supermarkets very rarely show their own brand but by talking price I believe they subconsciously drive consumers towards their value ranges. It is no surprise therefore to see value ranges closely matching the Master brand colours. Value is blue and red, Basics is orange, Smart Price is green and white. The key purpose to associate low prices with the Master brand. It is in part this reason that left me confused by the M Savers rebrand that doesn't link back to the Morrisons Master brand in any way at all. Value ranges operate as consumer commodities. It does not excite or increase shopper experience but offer a price function. The range should be easy to navigate around store and be clearly noticed on shelf. 

Morrisons and Coley Porter Bell have tried to create a brand with the M Savers range but why and for what reason. If Retailers put all their marketing spend behind the Master brand where will the spend come to highlight the functions and benefits of the M Savers range now that the M Savers brand is separate from the Morrisons Master brand. Whilst Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's continue to enforce their own overarching Master brands this marketing spend will always dwarf that of the M Savers range. Morrisons will either therefore have a new range that gets very little marketing spend or a marketing spend that is divided between the Master brand and that of the disparate sub brands of M Savers and M Kitchen etc. The brand will of course sell because brand awareness is present simply by the fact that it will be on shelf at every Morrisons store, it would have sold better however if it had been designed in green and yellow and introduced the word Morrisons instead of the 'M' roundel.

I believe that the supermarket retailers should contract their brands to only cover 3 offerings, premium, healthy and low price, only then can they really start to create brands and put clear and concise promises against these brands OR one step further and create brands within each category, this needs to be an all or nothing approach not disparate like Morrisons. The resulting Master brand would not be so eroded and so generically sold across so many platforms. A large part of consumer purchase is on shelf brand awareness, if they added engagement and equity, profits could go through the roof.  Aldi currently rebrand each consumer offering differently such as the brands Belmont biscuits and Diplomat tea. There is much to be admired in this approach and does conform to my ethos but there are still many pitfalls so again will warrant a follow up article.

let me know your thoughts.

Packaged, wrapped and slightly opinionated