Private Label is taking your Business because of Laziness!

This may be because you are lazy but I suspect its more to do with the fact that shoppers are lazy. The problem is that shoppers are overwhelmed with the amount of information they are bombarded with on a daily basis whether online or in-store and so they primarily pay attention to what is instantly available to them.

What is instantly available is either what is embedded in their long-term memory (as this is less effort to retrieve) or what is directly in front of them at the time of making the decision as again this requires little effort. Just because you work in FMCG and are excited by what you have worked on for the last 6 months don’t assume the shopper shares your passion and therefore will invest significant effort in appreciating your work. The relevance of your offer is either instantly obvious or the lazy brain flits off to something which gives more instant gratification.

What is embedded in long term memory (your brand’s Mental Availability) is the result of the effectiveness of your long-term brand building. The fragmentation of media is making this tougher but shoppers should recognise your brand by the colours and shapes you have stayed true to over time and which hopefully you have robustly defended against “parasitic copying” of the private labels from the few retailers who dishonestly try to trick the shopper. Nivea for example is still identifiable by the blue circle with white brand writing close to 100 years after it first appeared – making for happy lazy brains. You should also have built your brand equity over time by staying true to your brand promise, so the shopper’s lazy brain can instantly access these beliefs about your brand that inform and influence whether they choose you or private label as they can recall your added benefits. The more your brand has seamlessly communicated across all “touch points” the better these messages will be embedded. By staying true to these small number of messages and ensuring that the way they are re-presented in-store matches how they were seen when they were encoded, you will help the lazy brain find them faster.

What is directly in front of the shopper at the point when they make a decision also influences the shopper’s lazy brain (your brand’s Physical Availability in its broadest sense).

Often the shopper just grabs what they bought last time and leaves but, if they stop to choose their lazy brain is influenced by your brand’s Mental Availability and what is directly in front of them. If your brand has no messages on the pack or SRP that explains your added benefits then the only available information to influence the choice is price and you have just handed private label a huge advantage. To make it easier for the lazy brain the retailer’s price tickets even break the price down to a cost per LTR or KG and hence the comparison and choice is made on a metric where private label wins.

The only instore media a brand controls without paying retailers a fortune is on the pack or on SRP but I am shocked at how few brands use these to deliver instantly accessible messages that show the brand benefits over private label in a way that the undecided shopper can see, but also re-assures the current loyal shopper they are making the right choice. If these messages are directed against the known purchase barriers or areas of superiority over private label, brands can win with the shopper. Successful messages can be based on performance claims, awards won or social proof, all of which the lazy brain likes as they are easy to use as the rational for a decision. As an example, compare the lack of information on Dolmio versus the similar private label (Why would you pay 37p vs 19p per 100gm when there are no brand benefits?) with the strength of the claims on Fairy Liquid which re-enforce on SRP that they are best and have a sticker on the bottle that reminds the shopper of the brand equity every time they look at it on the sink at home.