Many OTC marketers struggle with staying abreast of what is happening with their competitors’ brands online. There are rapidly changing conditions online, including new brands and competitors that may or may not be sold on shelves in brick-and-mortar retail stores. These independent brands may not always be on the radar as many are sold exclusively online. They change as often as their prices and promotional offers online. Understanding OTC brands sold online and adjacent brands that can impact an OTC category is critical for success so that marketers can protect their market share and deliver sales growth for their OTC brands.
The OTC industry has been slow to adopt digital strategies in part due to the heavy level of regulatory scrutiny the products are sold under, as well as because the marketer often loses control of the brand’s message online, especially on social media where brands are subject to reviews, comments, and bloggers’ opinions. However, e-commerce has evolved from simply another sales channel to a platform for building brand awareness and touching consumers. “Digital is expected to have influenced about 77.0% of all retail sales in 2016, with a total retail value of more than $2 trillion,” according to IRI’s E-Commerce: Build, Drive and Earn E-Commerce Growth for Retail Success, published in January 2017. With this much influence on brands and markets, e-commerce has become critical for success and brands without a digital presence will not be around for long. In collaboration with IRI, Kline has recently published a whitepaper called OTCs Online: The Impact of E-commerce and Digital Presence on OTC Brands that examines the leading OTC brands’ websites, apps, online reviews, and social and digital campaigns. Click here to download whitepaper.
Amazon is the behemoth online retailer and has recently collaborated with Perrigo to launch a large 60-SKU line of OTCs under the private-label name Basic Care. This line is offered at lower prices than major retailers’ private-label products and contains pain relievers, allergy medications, antacids, sleep aids, laxatives, and topical products, among others. This launch has given branded OTC marketers even more challenges when selling their brands online, particularly on Amazon.
In order to stay informed on which OTC brands are winning online and to have a tool to use to protect your brands from erosion, Kline is pleased to announce Amalgam OTCs digital tracking service. This new web extraction tool continuously tracks OTC performance online and uses a proprietary algorithm to score OTC brands based on their ranking among the best-selling product listings, customer ratings, prevalence, and duration on the charts. This online tool will be published monthly starting Q4 2018 and will be accompanied by a quarterly trends report. Click here for the brochure or to request a free demonstration.
