The Challenge / Problem for Brands:

The traditional distinction between national brands and private label is becoming less relevant, creating a more demanding competitive environment for brands. Quality, taste, value, and reliability are baseline expectations rather than reasons to pay a premium, while heritage, recognition, and market leadership are no longer sufficient on their own to secure consumer choice. As retailer brands become more credible and develop products consumers actively seek out, brands must find new ways to demonstrate why they remain relevant.

Proposed Solution / Problem It Solves:

This report explores how brands and retailers can compete in a market where relevance is becoming more important than ownership. It examines the shift towards need-state-led innovation, emotional and cultural value, distinctive experiences, and propositions that consumers actively seek out rather than simply accept as substitutes. The report also explores how retailer brands can move beyond price-led competition to become destination brands, while highlighting how national brands can use innovation and emotional connection to defend and strengthen their position.

Risk of Getting This Wrong:

Relying on heritage, brand recognition, functional quality, or price as the primary source of differentiation risks leaving propositions vulnerable as retailer brands continue to raise the market standard. Brands that fail to demonstrate present-day relevance may struggle to justify premium positioning or maintain loyalty, while retailers that focus solely on lower prices risk missing the opportunity to build stronger destination brands. The report also highlights how innovation that focuses on functional improvement alone can overlook the emotional and experiential factors that influence consumer choice.

This report helps you decide:

How to compete when ownership matters less, where genuine differentiation can still be created as quality becomes the baseline, how to build propositions around specific consumer need states and occasions, and how to strengthen emotional relevance through experiences, storytelling, cultural relevance, and distinctive innovation. It also helps identify where brands and retailers should focus investment to continually earn their place in the consumer basket.

Who this is for:

Food and beverage manufacturers, retailers, brand owners, innovation and R&D teams, marketing professionals, and commercial and strategy leaders looking to understand how retailer brands are reshaping competition and what this means for future growth, differentiation, and consumer relevance.