Best Gardening Brand is a new category for this year’s edition.
best brands
Danone is number 1 in the Best Food Brand category once again. How do you explain this longevity? It is always nice to come first and it makes us proud of our brand. I clearly believe that when you take an initial look at the DIY category, it becomes obvious how important the gardening segment is for this business. Therefore, it deserves a category of its own – and Gardena is one if its leading brands. Have you noticed any significant trends in consumer behavior since the beginning of the health crisis? There is clearly a strong stay-at-home trend, if not voluntarily for many. Since the crisis, traveling options are limited. And so, people have started exploring other options on what to do. Many discovered gardening as a very rewarding pastime. That trend also had already started earlier in line with the trend for a more sustainable living. It started also with the fact that there are more kids in a family again than a generation before. The pandemic has boosted that trend, but we have good reason to believe that many will stick with gardening for a long time because they have become passionate about it.
“We need to reach and engage with consumers where they are and deliver them relevant content” Niko Huysegoms
In the Best Brands study, Gardena has a lower score in Awareness, compared to its close competitors in the category. How are you planning on improving this (or not)? Of course, as a brand you need to have a certain level of awareness. But that is by far not all that matters. Brand preference and then finally your conversion rate are more important. That is what really counts. And this has a lot to do with brand loyalty over time as well. In practice this means that you don’t just have to advertise more, but you have to advertise more relevant to your target audience so that it resonates with them.
Gardena scored highest in cross-selling potential. What does Gardena do differently than their competitors? Looking at other brands in this category, we can see that many of them specialize in one or few areas withing gardening. For example, power or cutting tools. Whereas at Gardena, we offer a broad portfolio of everything that passionate gardeners need – watering products including pumps, hand tools, cutting tools, lawn care products and you name it.
Also, we have a systems approach. With the Original GARDENA System, GARDENA combisystem and also GARDENA smart system, everything matches and works together giving you almost limitless opportunities.
What is Gardena’s innovation strategy? Gardena is – and always has been – a very consumer-focused brand. We are all about “Realizing your gardening dreams”. Those dreams are very individual and may differ a lot depending on where you live, your age, if you have kids or not. But whatever your individual gardening dream is, we are there to support you and offer you an innovative solution. Sometimes that solution is a complete smart gardening system, and sometimes that is “just” a clever tool to pick up your apples without having to bend your back. In short: We start thinking from consumers’ needs and challenges and build on our history of coming up with innovative solutions – always one step ahead.
How do you plan on staying a Best Brand for next year?
We all know it: standstill is decline. Therefore, a brand always needs to stay on top of things. Identifying current trends and carefully listening to consumer’s changing needs, habits, and preferences. We need to reach and engage with consumers where they are and deliver them relevant content, offer them clever solutions and – last but not least – be present where they want to shop.
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