Global Retail Executive Council: The Battle of the Basket, Part Three: The CPG Arsenal

As explained in Part One of GREC’s coverage of the Battle of the Basket, retailers and CPG brands are

currently involved in a cold war over winning the “hearts and minds” of shoppers. In Part Two, we explored some of the weapons in the retailer’s arsenal. In this piece, we will explore some of the weapons CPG brands are using to fight back:

Changing the battlefield: moving into emerging markets. Because U.S. and other mature markets are so saturated, CPG brands are increasingly focusing on emerging markets around the globe to reach an entirely new segment of shoppers. For example, Philips Electronics has aggressively moved into India. After all, as India’s middle class grows, more people are able to afford electricity, which makes India a perfect market for lightbulbs. Similarly, Colgate has sold strongly in China since 1991, and Nestle has recently moved some of its products into Latin American markets. CPG manufacturers are already creating loyalty in countries retailers have yet to even set foot in.
Better propaganda: leveraging social media. This is one of the most important tools any company should use, and a few CPG brands are using the power of the web to great advantage. The T-Mobile Dance video on YouTube is a brilliant example of the holy grail: Getting an advertisement to go viral. And with over 18 million views and counting, T-Mobile has to be thrilled. Similarly, Kotex’s new line of tampons has already received a reasonable level of notoriety on the internet, with an ad campaign designed to remove the stigma from women openly discussing tampons. Through news reports covering television networks’ refusal to broadcast the word “vagina,” as well as funny commercials satirizing the “ridiculous” nature of typical tampon commercials, Kotex is achieving a viral success of its own. (Full disclosure: My dad works for Kotex. But it’s still a great campaign.) Social media gives shoppers and outlet to share their devotion to a product, and CPG brands are well positioned to capitalize on honest product love. However, social media is a double-edged sword, as evidenced by Nestle’s recent meltdown on Facebook, which led to a noticeable drop on the company's stock price.
Guerrilla warfare: personalizing the brands. CPG brands are increasingly segmenting their consumers to make the brands and campaigns feel more personal. Why target women in general, for example, when you can target women of a certain age group or race? General Mills is a great example of this tactic, as they are currently attempting to tailor their brands for Hispanics, millennials, and baby boomers.
Coalition approach: creating a manufacturer superbrand. Many CPGs have been doing this for years, but it is increasingly essential for all brands to have this approach. In Australia, Unilever has recently decided to brand all its ads with an overall Unilever brand. So all Dove, Streets Ice Cream, and Lipton advertisements, to name a few examples, will include the distinctive Unilever big “U” logo, combining the brands into a family of sorts.
Improving intelligence: focus on data from the consumer. Typically, it has been difficult for CPG manufacturers to gather feedback from consumers, since the data on purchases was controlled by the retailers, who then utilized that information to capture sales with their own private brands. However, CPG manufacturers are now spending billions to acquire information from their consumers, which gives them a potent alternative approach to bring to bear against retailers armed with market basket data.
Confusion and diversion: variety, variety, variety. Many CPG brands understand the importance of offering a large assortment for the shopper to choose from, which makes the brand stand out compared to the private label options, which usually has very limited variety. For example, according to Crest’s website, the company currently offers over 40 different types of toothpaste. While retailers are definitely paring back their assortments, CPG companies can create new sources of demand by introducing new products and convincing shoppers that the new product makes the old - including retail private brands - obsolete. After all, who would settle for just plain "mint" when "citrus splash" is an alternative?
Smart weapons: location-based advertising. Some CPG brands are at the forefront of utilizing mobile promotions to drive customers who are shopping nearby to the stores, such as Kate Spade in Nordstrom or Mattel in Target. Shoppers can opt in to receive the promotions, which can deliver targeted coupons to the user’s mobile device when it senses they are in a mall near a Nordstrom, for example. This gets the shopper to not only enter a store where the CPG brand is sold, but to also specifically seek out the brand itself.

Private label is here to stay, and as CPG brands do battle with retailers over mindshare, they must remember it's a war not a skirmish. Constant innovation and a focus on real consumer value will continue to produce competitive products, and the ongoing "complexification" of product categories will continue to create new opportunities in the highly competitive playing field.

And a personal note to end the piece. In my own CPG-centric family, my dad's eager announcement of Kotex's new viral ad campaign was greeted by my mom's sarcastic response, “How can you people be living your normal lives when this amazingness is happening?” CPG brands are hoping for many others shoppers to similarly shout with glee, but in the end... will settle for a soft sigh of contentment as they choose the national brand at the store shelf.