Pricing & Brand Health

In consumer goods, assessing a brand's health can be useful in many strategic discussions. Should you invest in the brand/business, should you milk it or should you even consider selling it? Even, what kind of marketing spend should you put behind in next year's budget? Pricing and consumers' willingness-to-pay can play a crucial part of the decision making in such situations.

First of all, conduct some price research to understand the consumers' willingness-to-pay (if concerned about the total costs, or work effort behind doing it in multiple countries, have a look at e.g. PriceBeam's fast and cost-effective price research service). With the price research in hand then start making decisions:

• If consumers consider the brand either too cheap or fantastic value for money: either simply increase prices, or consider launching one or more brand extensions at higher price points.
• If some segments think the price is right while others would be willing to pay more: start using the value drivers that make certain segments willing to pay more. If some consumers consider that attribute X or Y makes it very affordable, then emphasise those attributes in your marketing effort to such segments, or even all consumers. 
• If consumers consider the brand too expensive: This is often the most difficult area. The first thing is probably to take a value-based view on things, and try to understand what value drivers/attributes make consumers wanting to pay a higher price, be it for your brand or a competitive one. How does your brand score along those lines? What attributes make the consumers consider your brand too expensive? Is that something that can be improved either by changing the product or by changing or investing in marketing?
• If consumers think that either a competitive brand, or e.g. a private label, is as good value for money as buying your brand: This kind of insight from price research usually is a strong indicator to invest more heavily in the marketing spend.

Industry insights show that brand companies who work diligently with price optimization and price research deliver superior profits, through an ability to price higher/better, but also because they have a better understanding of what markets to invest in and where to milk or harvest the profits of their pricing power.

While the above is written with consumer goods manufacturers in mind, the same approach can often successfully be used in various B2B environments. Have a chat with us at Stratinisto see how we can help your business with pricing.