U.S. & Europe Store Brand Trends 2010
Store Brands: More Than Just a Safe Harbor in Turbulent Times
Understanding the Chemistry of Store Brand Success
In last month’s Times & Trends, SymphonyIRI Group provided an update on the remarkable growth of store brands in the United States. Even with this impressive growth however, store brand value share in the United States hovers at just 18 percent, paling in comparison with countries such as the United Kingdom and France, with share of 32 percent and 27 percent respectively.
Studying store brand activity across Europe provides an exceptionally rich experience for U.S. marketers. Each country features unique population, cultural, socio-economic and other national attributes that fundamentally affect store brand performance. The lessons U.S. manufacturers and retailers can learn from Europe are vast.
At first glance, one would think that the countries of Southern Europe, suffering the most from recession and unable to devalue their way to recovery, would be the most likely to embrace store brands. This is certainly true in Spain, with the highest brand value share (38%) and highest point share growth (1.7 share points) in the last 12 months of any European country surveyed by SymphonyIRI. Yet, in Greece, perhaps most impacted by the economic downturn, store brand value share teeters at 10 percent and actually decreased 0.6 share points versus last year.