Growing Your Brand in a Challenging Economy

Makers of consumer goods are dealing with a business environment without precedent in recent history. Over the last six months, even recession-proof categories such as toilet paper and anti-perspirants/deodorants have declined in unit volume vs. the same period year ago. The challenge today is identifying and taking the steps needed to insulate your brands from the competition and keeping them growing.

In tough times, a number of key questions must be addressed:

• What is the proper allocation of spending between advertising and promotion?
• Do you need to blunt a potential consumer migration to private label brands?
• Should you move a brand's positioning to more of a value-oriented message vs. its current benefit-oriented message?

HRCP's ability to identify the broadest Competitive Frame in a shifting landscape helps you capitalize on the opportunities that economic turbulence presents to your brands. The starting point is to get a clear and complete view of your brand's Competitive Frame based on a precise understanding of actual consumer behavior. At HRCP, we use validated, proprietary methodologies and modeling to analyze consumers' purchase and usage behavior to define your brand's true Competitive Frame.

The second step is to integrate this behavioral understanding with everything else you know about the consumer (attitudes, desired benefits, need-state information, etc.) and the brand (equity studies, key satisfiers/dissatisfiers).

The final step is charting a growth path for your brand that is rooted in differentiating it against its true competition and creating actionable plans to grow market share, expand markets or enter new markets.

Even in these very tumultuous times, brands can accelerate growth. Getting the fundamentals right is critical regardless of the environment, but especially in turbulent times.

The work begins with understanding that the true Competitive Frame for your brand is the centerpiece of a transformational strategy. It opens up the reality of the consumers' world for marketers. It requires casting aside existing business paradigms. Start with an accurate, empirically-driven understanding of the true Competitive Frame of your brand, and then create a growth strategy that leverages your brand's strength.

In times of change, unanticipated opportunities are available if marketers know how to find them.