A category plan that resulted in 50% more private brand distribution
Case Study
Author: Mike Holcomb | 5 minute read
The Opportunity
This is the category management problem nobody writes playbooks for. A small team gets one meeting with a major retailer on a private brand opening, in a category with no syndicated data worth buying, while its existing items are under attack from competing suppliers. The standard advice, bring the category data, is useless when the category data does not exist.
- Small team, big meeting
- Items under attack
- No syndicated data
The Approach
- Ran discovery: trends, interviews, retail audits standing in for data. Walking the fixture in 20 stores beat any purchased dataset.
- Built insights and pathways to a strategic retailer partnership. Not a sales pitch: the retailer bought a partner, then the range.
- Armed the team with the retail-ready plan and recommendations. A portable model for any category where the data is thin.
The Outcome
Items protected from competing suppliers, with incremental promotional support won for the year.
+50%
Private brand distribution
+6 Points
Estimated annual growth
Meet The Team
Alyse Woods
Kimberly Schleef
Mike Holcomb
