Category Leadership

It sounds obvious, but leaders should lead and never follow. Tesco had plenty to differentiate their “pile it high” discount competitors, i.e. quality, provenance and a relentless customer focus behind the renowned “Every little helps” campaign. Instead, it chose to dance to their competitors’ tune and, in so doing, allowed those brands to experience aggressive double-digit growth in market share. They subsequently posted a £6.4bn loss – one of the largest in UK corporate history.

In stark contrast, when Walkers found its position as the leading crisp brand under threat from competitors offering exciting new ingredients, its response was to innovate rather than imitate. Using the full range of tools at its disposal (distribution, awareness, social media, Gary Lineker), the ‘Do Us A Flavour’ campaign took on its rivals at their own game and outperformed category sales growth by 68%. Walkers also achieved its highest market share for 3 years and a deep level of consumer interaction with over 1m flavour suggestions. It showed how a marketing idea could affect every aspect of the business and 5 years later repeated the campaign with a £1m prize on offer.

So what are the ingredients of a brand leader?

·      The attitude of a leader and clarity on the challenge – what will it take to lead or even grow the market?

·      A robust strategy to drive consideration and even re-appraisal - you play to your strengths

·      Behave like a leader – think like a challenger, but act in a way that demonstrates leadership

·      A plan to sustain momentum – a programme for generating fresh ideas and evolving the narrative. Smarter use of research to generate insight into where the market’s going, so you can get there before the competition

Napolina behaved like a leader even before it reached the top. Central to the brand’s leadership behaviour is its consistent focus on being ‘at the heart of Italian cooking’ – which gives the brand both authenticity and the elasticity to stretch into numerous product categories. It behaved like the market leader and the market followed.

Some brands are able to effectively invent a new category (thanks to Activia we're all familiar with probiotic yogurt), but even in saturated markets the combination of sharp consumer insight and creative execution can propel a new brand to the top. Look at what’s happened in baby food, where Plum and Ella’s Kitchen left Heinz, for all its marketing muscle, far behind.

Numerous challenger brands have successfully changed the conversation in their markets by focusing on a core message and adapting to connect both emotionally and rationally. After all, why challenge when you can lead?