November 05, 2021
What makes private brands successful? How has private label branding changed in recent years? One of our CBX partners and retail guru, Todd Maute, recently sat down with Packaging Strategies Editor in Chief Kristin Joker on BNP Media’s Packaging Perspectives podcast to give his expert insight into the world of private brands.
The two opened the dialogue by discussing some characteristics that successful private brands have in common. Historically, private label branding has been a very product-focused industry. The draw for consumers was getting a product comparable to their favorite name brand for less money. In the past five or six years, however, private brands have shifted gears to focus more on brand first, product second. And design—Todd says—is a crucial element when it comes to communicating your brand’s purpose and meaning. “A few years ago, design was a functional tool to communicate a product benefit or feature attribute,” he explains. “Today, private label brands have become much more strategic in order to communicate their brand purpose through packaging design.” Without the huge marketing dollars behind traditional national brands, successful store brands use packaging and merchandising as their primary marketing tools. In some cases, your brand’s packaging is the first line of defense to tell that brand story and to communicate the efforts that have really gone behind creating such a great product.
Here at CBX, we’ve worked with big names like Kroger, Sam’s Club, BJ’s Wholesale, and Duane Reade to develop all-encompassing brand strategies that have helped their private labels win more market share over national brands. According to Todd, when retailers and agencies can work strategically together to convey both value proposition and brand meaning to their customers, that’s when the magic happens. Listen to the full podcast for more of Todd’s unique insight into the world of private branding.