Triple whammy for small brands
Double jeopardy is well documented: Compared to larger brands, smaller brands have fewer buyers that buy them slightly less often. However, these small brands have to overcome a third obstacle in their growth quest: An analysis of consumer attitudes for some 750 FMCG brands in nine European markets reveals that they receive consistently lower brand perception ratings than large brands (the gap is larger for “subjective” perceptions like willingness to recommend or perceived quality than for “objective” perceptions like advertising or new product activity). This is not surprising because users of a brand are much more likely to have positive attitudes than non-users. However, even their own users rate these small brands consistently lower than users of large brands do. To make matters worse, non-users of small brands are also less enthusiastic about these small brands than non-users of large brands. A case of quadruple jeopardy?