A startup business faces many difficult challenges getting off the ground. For many early stage CEO’s assessing their priorities, product development and the seed money to grow are their primary concerns. Few if any are thinking much about brand building–mainly because they believe it to be sophisticated marketing they simply can’t afford.
Consumers are definitely giving retailers permission to grow their private label brands. The real question is will retailers grow private label brand value or simply grow more private labels?
What you need to build into a brand is a positive. The purpose of hanging a negative on your competitor is to set up that positive idea. Some years ago, Stolichnaya vodka hung “American made” on its U.S. competitors who were “making believe they were Russian.” It was setting up “the Russian vodka” as its positive idea.
I am hearing a lot these days about brand relationships being like human relationships.
David Ogilvy, a legend along-side the likes of Rosser Reeves and Bill Bernbach, has some strong words to say about deals and price. They are certainly worth repeating:
