Retailers invest heavily in developing private label products but often rush through the initial naming process. Walk into any supermarket, and you'll be dazzled by shelves full of names like "XX Premium," "XX Select," or "XX Curated." When names all look the same, why should consumers remember you or choose you? The root cause often lies not in a lack of creativity but in a lack of strategy. A random name neither guides direction nor consolidates strength, and it can hardly carry a systematic brand project from the start. When a retail enterprise decides to develop private brands, the first strategic decision is not designing a logo or setting prices, but answering a fundamental question: What brand identity will we present to consumers? This choice—the private brand strategy (brand architecture)—will profoundly determine resource allocation, development path, and market fate. Naming Chaos: When Strategy is Absent, Names Lose Their Soul Current private brand naming often lacks top-level design, resulting in three major problems:

  1. Positioning-Deficient "Self-Expressive" Naming Many names only reflect internal preferences, disconnected from the master brand and consumer perception. For example, a supermarket focused on "family gatherings" that names its premium red wine "XX Pavilion" creates an aloof image that clashes with the store atmosphere, preventing effective consumer associations and wasting brand investment.
  2. System-Chaotic "Scattered Sand" Naming Lack of unified brand architecture planning leaves multiple private brands like scattered sand. If a retailer operates unrelated brands like "Yuexianfang," "Chuyijia," and "Zhishenghuo" simultaneously, internal resources are dispersed, and consumers are confused, unable to form brand synergy.
  3. Thoughtless and Lazy "Follow-the-Trend" Naming Directly adopting industry buzzwords is a sign of strategic laziness. When "curated, selected, premium, and choice" become generic suffixes, these names lose basic distinctiveness and value, becoming homogenized background noise—a direct reflection of the enterprise's failure to define differentiation. Addressing the Root Cause: Naming is the Direct Output of Private Brand Strategy Chaotic naming stems from strategic ambiguity. Brand strategy is an extension of corporate business planning; it clearly defines the relationship between private brands and the retailer's master brand, as well as its strategic intent within the overall business. This fundamental choice determines the brand's starting point, resource investment, and risk exposure, and is communicated to the market through naming. Strategic Paths: Define Relationships, Clarify Direction There are three clear paths for private brand strategy, with core differences as shown below:
  4. Master Brand Strategy: High Integration, Direct Trust Definition: Private brands directly use the retailer's corporate or master brand name. For example, all of Pangdonglai's private label products use the "Pangdonglai" brand; Miniso's store products are its own same-name private brands, highly integrated with the master brand. Advantages and Challenges: The advantage is seamless inheritance of the master brand's equity, such as awareness, reputation, loyalty, and brand associations, leading to lower market introduction costs and easier recognition. The challenge is high risk concentration—any product issue directly impacts the master brand; also, brand tone is strictly limited, making extension to different positions difficult. Applicability: Best suited for retailers whose master brand has strong, unique, and positive core assets (e.g., recognized exceptional service, disruptive value-for-money) and whose private brand positioning aligns closely with the master brand image. This strategy requires absolute control over product quality and operational service.
  5. Hybrid Brand Strategy: Bridging Past and Future, Balanced Development Definition: Uses a "master brand + sub-brand" association model, gaining endorsement while expressing individuality. For example, JD.com's "JD Made" leverages JD's platform credibility, emphasizing craftsmanship and self-operated quality; 7-Eleven's "7-Premium" series uses the prefix "7-" to lock in the 7-Eleven convenience store brand recognition, while the suffix defines the product line's premium positioning. Advantages and Challenges: The advantage is leveraging the master brand's relevant equity while maintaining private brand personality and flexibility, enabling natural communication with consumers across different categories or segments. The challenge is higher brand management requirements—clear differentiation and synergy between master and sub-brands, with marketing investment needing to cover both. Applicability: Suitable for retailers with diverse categories, intent to expand into different segments (e.g., from basic to quality), and a master brand with strong extensibility. This is currently the most mainstream and pragmatic private brand strategy choice. 3. Independent Brand Strategy: Maintaining Individuality, Self-Contained System Definition: Creates a new brand formally unrelated to the retailer's master brand. This strategy is often used to enter markets with different brand associations from the existing master brand, or to avoid competition with third-party merchants on platforms, operate highly sensitive categories, or maintain fairness and neutrality. For example, a large supermarket group (with mass-market associations) might create an independent brand for a premium food line (high-end brand image), or an e-commerce platform might establish an unrelated brand to maintain neutrality and fairness. Advantages and Challenges: The advantage is significant: the brand image is free from the master brand's historical constraints and can be freely defined; risk is isolated from the retailer's main business. The challenge is equally great: it's like starting a new venture—building brand awareness from scratch, with high capital and time costs, requiring long-term, sustainable, and effective planning. Applicability: Mainly used for three strategic intents: first, entering entirely new markets different from the master brand's DNA; second, operating highly sensitive categories requiring strong trust endorsement (e.g., maternal and child, health products); third, platform-based retail maintaining ecosystem fairness through brand isolation. Naming is Just the Beginning; Systematic Building Determines Brand Success An appropriate private brand strategy and name are only the start; true brand building comes from subsequent systematic implementation. 1. VI System Implementation: Visualizing the Brand All elements—logo, colors, typography, packaging materials, usage scenarios—must strictly align with the brand strategy promise. A food brand claiming "natural and organic" would instantly collapse its strategic promise if it used chemical-feeling plastic packaging and garish colors. 2. Brand Proposition: Verbalizing Values A clear, powerful slogan is needed to communicate unique value to consumers. For example, NetEase Yanxuan's early "Good life, not that expensive" precisely translated its "quality at affordable prices" strategic positioning into consumer language. 3. Full Touchpoint Experience: Making the Brand Perceptible The brand ultimately exists in the consumer's overall experience. Product quality, store service, online interaction, after-sales response—every touchpoint validates or negates the brand promise. Pangdonglai's private brands are deeply rooted because its product and service experiences exceed expectations, supporting the trust represented by the name "Pangdonglai," not the name itself. 4. Continuous Communication: Assetizing the Brand Brand building is a long-term endeavor. All brand exposures must maintain consistent and continuous messaging to accumulate brand equity, transforming the name from a mere identifier into a brand with emotional stickiness and premium capability. Conclusion: From Choosing a Name to Building a Brand Naming a private brand is the starting point of a serious business decision. It requires enterprises to calmly examine themselves: Is the strategy clear? Who are the primary target consumers? What is the competitive scope? Where are the core advantages? How to build competitive advantage? How much risk is the enterprise willing to bear?
  • The master brand strategy is a concentration of forces, aiming to establish absolute advantage in core areas;
  • The hybrid brand strategy is multi-line deployment, aiming to solidify the base while exploring new territories;
  • The independent brand strategy is a surprise attack, intending to establish a bridgehead in a new battlefield. Choosing a private brand strategy sets the tone for naming, but naming is just the starting gun. After the gun fires, a systematic brand building campaign involving product, visuals, experience, and communication truly begins. Retailers committed to private brands must treat them as a long-term, systematically managed strategic project, not a one-off or impulsive OEM action. This is the key to creating truly vibrant private brands in 2026 and beyond. Xue Wenfa, columnist for New Distribution's private brand section, a long-termist with 20 years of practical experience injecting "value differentiation genes" into brands. He has participated in Nongfu Spring's brand value reshaping, led Zhujiang Beer's youthful brand strategy transformation, and built Meiyijia's private brand ecosystem. He is currently responsible for OEM/ODM, product development, branding, and marketing at Guangdong Yinxue Group (the "King of OEM"). He focuses on research and practice in "value differentiation construction" and "private brand system building and advantageous growth." March 16-18, 2026, Chengdu. At the [CFC 11th China FMCG Conference] forum [Challenges and Opportunities for Private Brands], I will give a special presentation: "Insight, Breakthrough, Reconstruction: The Growth Path of Private Brands." I will analyze private brands across different strategies, tactics, stages, business formats, organizational structures, and category development, identifying problems, discovering opportunities, finding breakthrough bottlenecks, and charting future growth paths. Only by understanding the logic behind changes can we find a confident way forward. Interested friends, see you in Chengdu in March!