We have seen, great success stories regarding this type of product branding, but we also have seen many unsuccessful ones. The major problem is that quality has to be assured and the colour reference have to be consistent. If we have problems controlling shade from products manufactured in the same factory, we will have chaos if the origin is different as products will be different in texture and shade.
Everyone likes to have an edge on their market, and self branding their products is a costly activity but rewarding, as they protect themselves from producers who strategically may want to increase market share. And in times like the ones we have lived in the last few years, many ethical and other respectable words are just ripped from our sales vocabulary, and everything goes, as long as sales keeps up to beat.
Personally, I've done business both ways, and have played both parts as a producer and distributor. While importing from the producer, the market I was dealing with did not show any consistency in sales until we filled the gap. We guaranteed sales, in exchange for exclusive rights to be the sole importer for the country. The first two years went really well, expected sales jumped, by the third year the producer noticed the potential of our market and decided not to sign a written agreement. We promoted the brand, with marketing and publicity, without any or very little support from the producer, the risk to our business was too high for our stakes, so we decided to create our own brand and start buying some colours from other producers. At the end of the year we stopped marketing with the producers brand and fully assumed our brand.
Obviously this brand changing event was not positive for business, but we seen it as inevitable to guarantee our position in the business.
As a producer, we have had a very loyal attitude towards our distributors, supporting them as much as we could, our brand was a low-cost alternative, basically a great price quality product. Although sales was always the key to maintain sales agreements, if sales do not comply, then the agreement is useless. Never should the agreement be settled when sales are as predicted, the greedy mind to increase sales by eliminating counterparts in the sales chain can back fire.
Producing OEM or branded products, we have done both, some of our clients want to control their market strategy, so they brand them themselves. In our most important and traditional markets we had our own brand and created a quality image for our products. It takes years to build an image, and this image has to be supported on quality products and quality service, one thing that some people may not be aware of is that it takes very little to destroy years and years of hard work. And the worst part is that some mistakes may never be mended.
