Blank video

Discount Store News, Oct 20, 1997

The blank video-cassette market is often under the influence of promotional activities. The brands favored by retailers and consumers can easily be swayed by major advertising campaigns or national contests that can create levels of awareness that change throughout the year.

There are several well-known brands in the category, but consumers are often solely driven by price when buying videotape.

However, a few brands seem to have made some lasting impressions on both discount retailers and consumers as evidenced by some long-term trends in the Power Brands survey.

Maxell and TDK each claimed 13% of consumers in this year's survey, up from 12% and 9%, respectively, in the 1996 survey.

TDK qualified for Power Brand status for the first time in this year's survey, partially on its strong rise in popularity with discount retailers.

TDK was this year's top brand among retailers, with 45% making it their top choice compared with 28% in the 1996 survey. Slightly more than 61% of Target respondents surveyed said that TDK was their best-performing brand of blank videotape.

The brand also did well at Wal-Mart, where 48% named TDK as their top-performing brand in the blank videotape category.

Maxell held a strong No. 4 position with 24%, while Scotch/3M continued its multiyear slide in retailer awareness with 20%, compared with 23% in the 1996 survey.

Maxell is pushing ahead with new packaging featuring bold graphics and new colors for its line of T-160 VHS videocassettes in several tape grades.

In an effort to gain more consumer awareness, Fuji is also updating the packaging for its blank videotapes ranging from all varieties of VHS to 8mm and Hi8 tapes.

Both brands are backing their new redesigns with plenty of consumer research that shows brighter is better.

Scotch/3M was the No. 2 brand among retailers in the 1993 survey with 36% calling it a best-performing brand.

Fuji, Polaroid and Scotch/3M, all brands that compete in the videotape as well as camera categories, failed to qualify as Power Brands in this year's survey.

Panasonic, a brand that appeared in last year's survey, dropped from this year's list. Memorex was named a best-performer by 8% of retailers, while 7% mentioned Fuji.

RCA was named by 6% of retailers, while Focal, which is sold at Kmart, was chosen by 3% of retailers.

Buyers of blank videocassettes are indeed becoming more brand-conscious. This year's survey found that 65% of consumers said that they have brand preference when shopping for blank videotape compared with 92% who expressed a preference in 1992.

Nearly 52% of consumers surveyed said that they might buy the store brand or a private label brand of blank videotape if the brand they were looking for was not present.

Blank videotape consumers have the second highest level of confidence that they will find the brand of blank videotape they are looking for when they walk into a discount store of any product category in the Power Brands survey.

Overall, the survey shows a confidence level of 8.38 (on a nine-point scale with nine being the most confident).

Discounters

Brand         1997    1996

TDK            45%    28%
Sony           37     37
Kodak          30     18
Polaroid       25     25
Maxell         24     23
Scotch/3M      20     23
Memorex         8     14
Fuji            7      4
RCA             6      3
Focal           3     --
Discount Store Shoppers

Brand         1997    1996

Sony           20%    17%
Kodak          16     14
Maxell         13     12
TDK            13      9
Polaroid        9     13
Scotch/3M       9     16
Fuji            8      8
Memorex         4      8
BASF            3      3
Panasonic       2     --