Private Brand: Premium vs Standard Brand – Asia
DIFFERENTIATION OR LACK THEREOF
Project Outline:
A family owned and Asia based automotive chemical manufacturer was having difficulty getting existing and new customers to accept a new premium brand of service and maintenance chemicals. An outsiders view of their business strategy in order to help identify the factors that are preventing the program from getting any traction in the marketplace. It is important to note that the purpose in developing a premium line is satisfy the needs of a broader market by delivering new sales and additional profits.
Project Outcome:
A detailed review of the product line strategies (standard and premium), the individual program packaging, the line specific collateral created to support the brands and the actual product formulations utilized in each of the two brand quality levels. The key finding associated with the review was the lack of differentiation between the physical appearance between the brands. The standard “S” brand and the premium “W” brand looked exactly the same except for the background colour to the packaging label. In fact the only differentiation between the two brands was that the premium brand had the additional support of a dedicated European racing themed website to give an illusion that the brand had a racing heritage. All packaging (bottles and aerosols containers) looked exactly the same, the collateral materials were exactly the same except for the colour and the pictures used within the documents and there weren’t any special premium related performance claims being made for formulations used in the premium brand. The issue related to product formulations was that the manufacturer was not qualified as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) supplier and as a result could not make any performance related claims.
To reposition the premium “W” brand the following action plans were put into place:
- Product formulation relationship developed with a global OEM performance chemical supplier and used exclusively in the brand
- Different shaped bottles embossed with “W” brand developed and used to package the product
- New premium aerosol caps with unique articulated extension tube used to communicate a premium look
- Packaging labels redone and differentiated from the standard “S” brand
- New collateral created using a different layout format to avoid any direct comparison to standard “S” brand
- All formulations used in the premium “W” brand packaged with premium international OEM formulations
- All labels incorporated an “OEM” formulation commitment and where possible specific performance claims were added