Pulse quickens for brandowners
You may have seen the adverts over the Christmas break with the main supermarkets clamouring for your cash with offers, discounts and claims that their own label products are as good as branded, but how do consumers really perceive the gap between branded and own label?
As might be expected, the turmoil of the past year has dramatically affected consumer perceptions of the value of food and drink brands. Whilst perceptions of brand superiority remain for the vast majority of products, there has been a noticeable decline in this view across all categories over the last three months. Most worryingly, a huge 80% of consumers told us they would continue to buy own label even if prices reverted to old levels*. Some brands manage to buck this trend, so do contact us to find out which these are! Generally though, people are giving themselves a pat on the back for having located cheaper products which fully meet their needs.
This presents a huge challenge to brandowners who have been anxiously watching share prices fall and raw ingredients rise in cost. More than ever, it is crucial that brands differentiate and innovate to tackle the own-label threat head on. With supermarkets now actively promoting their products as direct replacements for brands, brandowners must provide a point of difference.
This is just a very small example from our subscription-based monthly trend monitoring service MMR Pulse®.
Now half way through its second year, the service provides many of our major clients access to monthly reports based on a quarterly cycle.
Month 1 offers the results of an in-depth quantitative study (n = 1000) tracking the subtle changes in people's attitudes to a whole host of factors which influence buying behaviour on everything to do with food and drinks purchasing.
Month 2 reports on our community forum at www.pulsefoodanddrink.com
Month 3 reports on our online qualitative research, where we pick the most suitable issues from what we have learnt within Pulse and also take requests from our clients. All this for around £12k per annum for twelve reports. Please do contact us to learn more.
* This was from an extra mini survey with a sample size of 110. We use these mini surveys to gauge responses to issues of immediate interest at various times throughout the Pulse year, often at the request of our clients