Private Brand: Manufacturer Branding vs Product Branding – Asia
IS YOUR PRODUCT BRAND GETTING IN THE WAY OF YOUR CORPORATE BRAND?
One cannot See The Forest For The Trees….
Project Outline:
An 35 year old automotive product manufacturing company located in Southeast Asia is having difficulty attracting foreign companies marketing products that they manufacture from using its manufacturing facility to supply and package using their international brands for the Asian market place. The owner of the company requested that an outsider review the situation and provide him and his senior management with an analysis an recommendation on how to correct this unacceptable situation.
Project Outcome:
It was quickly assessed that the Asian manufacturer that they were their own worst enemy. As a company they produced products packaged in two different brands for the Asian marketplace. The company itself is more or less known by the name of the city it is located in. When a potential customer visits the factory they immediately are faced with two large billboards next to the building advertising their product brands. Once inside the building, the offices and the boardroom, all of the product displays are once again that of the two company owned brands. Lastly, the company did not have a corporate website, it had two websites that focused on the two product brands.
Visiting this factory quickly informs the potential customer that this is company is not a suitable candidate to be a supplier. The reason for this is simple…. why would I as a buyer want to negotiate with this company the supply and production of products in n international brand and then have to compete directly with this company. As a supplier and competitor, the Asian manufacturer would gain an upper hand in the marketplace and because it was a supplier it would know the costs of the products made fr the Asian market and could undercut the customer at any time to earn distribution sales in the Asian marketplace.
The report detailing these findings was prepared and reviewed with the company president and the senior management team. Now that they knew and understood the mixed message that they were communicating to visiting potential customers, they requested assistance to further define and put into place a corporate and product branding strategy that would support their business strategy. During the four months following the report, the company was re-branded with a new logo, a new corporate website and supporting marketing collateral was created, the sales offices for the two corporate brands were moved to another offsite location and the manufacturing offices and boardroom were redecorated to be more of a standalone operation reflecting the product it manufactures and the companies that it does business with.
The end result was that the confusion based on the company being a competitor was no longer there and they successfully were able to attract and earn manufacturing contract for foreign companies and brands.