CHAPTER 5

STORE BRAND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Jean-Baptiste Coumau, Lars Köster, Kai Vollhardt

In the early days, being a retailer meant opening a store – a single store. Some of the pioneers carry the location of their original premises in their store or product brands to this day – think of Smythson of Bond Street, Hermès 24 Faubourg, or Saks Fifth Avenue. The next phase was characterized by physical expansion: the setting up of new outlets, usually under a single brand. The retailer's brand became the promise of reliable quality, value, and service, regardless of which outlet the customer bought from.

In our day, leading retail groups are juggling a multitude of networks, formats, and store brands. In part, this is driven by retailers' aspirations to differentiate their value proposition according to the needs of different customer groups and purchase occasions. In part, it is a side effect of consolidation through mergers and acquisitions. The result is that retailers are left with a portfolio management challenge: does the differentiation afforded by multiple brands or formats outweigh the synergies of a monobrand strategy? Does it pay to launch an entirely new brand for a given country or target group, or should we try to refine the positioning of an existing brand or product? This chapter outlines the BrandMatics Advanced approach, an integrated methodology that creates a robust fact base for retailers' brand portfolio decisions.

Increasingly, retailers are operating multiple ...

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