Abstract
Anticipating the speed of market entry can help the feature pioneer and me-too brands develop more informed product launch strategies. This paper explains imitation speed, broken down into the incidence and timing of imitation, across 144 imitators and 847 nonimitators in 22 consumer packaged goods subcategories. On average, it takes 85 weeks for a me-too brand to introduce its feature imitation. Increasing category market share increases the incidence of imitation and, conditional on their occurrence, decreases the time to market of feature imitators. Faster entry arises for store brands as they are more likely to imitate and tend to take shorter times to market. Price premium does not have a significant effect on the incidence or timing of a me-too brand as it tends to dissipate after the first year. Brands imitate innovative features more often than noninnovative features. Some evidence indicates these imitators can take a longer time to enter the market. New product managers may benefit from the direction as well as the magnitude of these results.
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Notes
This study takes the consumer’s perspective that brands entering the market after the feature pioneer are “me-toos,” regardless of the me-too brand’s intent to copy or misfortune of being overtaken by the pioneer.
The Marketing Factbook provides price data at the brand level, which corresponds to the product category. The hypotheses are at the subcategory level. For example, Crest’s price in the Marketing Factbook is an aggregate price of all the stock-keeping units (skus) that carry the Crest name. DFF prices can be used to estimate prices for the feature pioneer and me-too brands at the subcategory level, which are used in the hypothesis testing.
Market shares of brands that do not appear in the Factbook are also estimated at 0.375%, 0.25%, and 0.125%. The hypothesis testing results are not materially influenced.
Per-use adjustments are made for superconcentrated products from the laundry detergent, dish detergent, and fabric softener categories and for double-roll toilet tissue products.
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Sinapuelas, I.C., Robinson, W.T. Entry for supermarket feature me-too brands: An empirical explanation of incidence and timing. Mark Lett 20, 183–196 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-008-9062-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-008-9062-1