Liked by everyone or loved by a few?

Once you're established in the market, it's challenging to admit that things can change and the numbers can turn around. It's essential to be prepared because that moment may come.

The Problem

That's the situation Laura found herself in when she called us worried. For years, her product had dominated the market, her brand was the benchmark for the entire population in that sector, and they had never had complications in maintaining their leadership until the rise of new brands began to concern them. In a few months, they noticed that these brands were gaining ground and market share in the different segments, and they wanted to understand what was happening.

Getting down to business

As soon as we received her call, we understood that what was needed in this case was to conduct a consumer study to analyse the acceptance of her product compared to those of these emerging brands. With this study, we managed to find out which product was most accepted by consumers.

Study Results

The study revealed interesting conclusions:

• Established Product: Laura's brand continued to be liked by a large portion of the population. Its quality was appreciated, and people trusted its reputation, it remained the safe bet. Acceptance was not extremely high, but it was not negative for any sector of the population.
• Emerging Brands: Instead of optimizing average values to appeal to the entire population, they took certain characteristics to the extreme to appeal to the sector that loved them, at the expense of causing another percentage of the population to reject them.

Conclusion

We realised that Laura's brand wouldn't capture 100% of the market share, but it remained the reference brand for much of the population. This represented a significant niche that guaranteed a solid base of loyal customers. But then...

What Should the Company Do?

At this point, Laura and her team had to make decisions.

• Should they modify their product to try to attract those who are drawn to the emerging brands?

They would have to adjust certain aspects of their product to attract consumers who prefer emerging brands, while risking to lose current customers.

• Should they keep their product as it is, relying on its positioning as an established brand?

One option would be to continue with their current product, reinforcing their marketing campaign to highlight the attributes that make it superior and reliable.

• Should they launch new products to compete directly with the emerging ones?

They could introduce new variants that can compete directly with emerging brands in terms of price and features, to gain a larger market share.

The future of Laura's company depends on a well-thought-out strategy that balances efforts in innovation with the loyalty of its consumers.

Which path should they take?