The aim of the sophisticated type of own label is to present customers with a product which has at least as good a quality as the brand of the market leader.

Another useful technique, known as a sequential monadic, is, at the next stage of development, to have target consumers use both the prototype formula and the market leader or competitive benchmark product.

According to Roba's CEO, Roba's most important product groups are: children-beds, chests, shelves, highchairs (market leader), playthings of wood, Inletsets, children's seating groups, playpens, mattresses, sand-boxes (market leader), blackboards (market leader), safety gates and vending stalls.

The lesson is that when you are competing with a strong market leader you should not necessarily attack head on, but try to change the rules of the game: for example by approaching the customer from a new direction.

A fragmented industry where no one firm has a significant market share tends to be more fiercely competitive than one which is a clear market leader who is in a dominant position. The lack of a clear market leader may be explained by the fact that the industry is emerging and is in a condition of considerable turbulence and uncertainty, or it may be seen in more mature industry where there are low entry barriers and few advantages to size.

Knorr, a Swiss company, is the dry soup market leader in Europe.

Market leader

Meaning

Noun