Get off my land! Leading vs. Poacher Brands (Part 2)

In last week's post we looked at how leading brands Walkers and Kellogg’s are shouting "Get off my land!" and trying to repel “poacher brands” who are stealing their share.

In this post we look at how Tropicana is doing this, in a way that may have more chance of success that the previous two examples.

Higher chance of success: Tropicana Gold Label vs. Grove Fresh
Grove Fresh is a small brand of premium organic juices, pushing a “fresh from the orchard” image and using distinctive black packaging. Tropicana’s response is a premium Gold Label range with fancier flavours than their standard one, such as Valencia Orange and Crushed Raspberry.
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1. Credibility: feels like a credible stretch upmarket for Tropicana, which has a good quality image in the UK. They don’t have the organic stamp that Grove Fresh have though (5/10)
2.Value proposition: Tropicana have gone for the copy-paste approach here! On shelf you can hardly tell the difference in packs. And Tropicana seem to be pricing a bit lower, at £2.49 vs. £2.59 for Grove Fresh.In my local convenience store the price difference was even bigger: they were under £3 at £2.99, 10% below Grove Fresh (7/10)
 3. Speed of response: big win here. Pepsico have moved fast to fight this poacher, before it gets a loyal following (8/10)
4. Business model: again Pepsico’s distribution muscle can help Tropicana get to places that Grove Fresh can’t, and also put pressure on the poacher brand in the big retailers (8/10)
Total: 28/40

Conclusion
To fight off Poacher Brands, Leading Brands need to move fast and hit hard, acting before the Poacher builds up a loyal following and strong equity. Tropicana have done this, with Pepsico perhaps applying learning from having waited too long to kick Kettle Chips in the balls.

Brand naming needs careful thought, as a mainstream brand can reduce the credibility and authenticity of when fight Poacher Brands, as we saw in Kellogg's vs. Dorset.

Finally, in planning a fight-back, leading brands should leverage business model advantages, not just brand equity, such as distribution muscle.