Investigating Private Labels' Success Against National Brands in the Men's Razor Category

This paper will focus on the private labels and national brands that make up the men's razor category within the shaving industry. Factors that affect both the success of private label brands and create roadblocks for them will be assessed and applied to CVS's private label brand Blade by incorporating Hoch and Banerji's study on private label brands' success with Varadarajan, DeFanti and Busch's research regarding the strength of brand portfolios. Blade will be compared to national razor brands that it competes against in CVS stores, with a specific compare and contrast to Schick, its direct competitor. This analysis has a particular focus on the United States razor market due to the dearth of drug-store chains in Europe that offer private label brands. This paper investigates how a private label brand in a large category can gain greater market share and effectively compete with the popular national brands.