I always read Bridgethorne's blog with interest, theres some great insight so if you work in FMCG sales & marketing I'd highly recommend subscribing.
Today's release is really interesting as we work with lots of challenger or UK start up brands here at PIE. We're always envangelising the career & personal opportunity in progressing with exciting SME's on the growth path, this is just another great reason to get involved.
With talk of Millenial's distrust of bigger brand strategy, brand snobbery & the instagram junkies, & the quest for authenticity in terms of taste & brand ethics, theres a lots of mileage in this...
So any supplier – even if it is just a small, challenger brand – can use a category vision to influence a whole category, by demonstrating clear thought leadership. In fact they may often be better placed to do so as they have less at stake and can provide greater levels of objectivity. To do so, though, the supplier needs to be able to think more broadly than the immediate market served by its products, to demonstrate a wider understanding of consumer and shopper needs in the context of the category concerned, and of retailers’ decision-making processes. This is the smaller supplier’s opportunity to prove it is not a one trick pony and that it has the benefits of the entire category rather than simply the section in which it presently functions at heart.
Read the original article here