Category Captain

When a retailer is struggling to manage a particular category, it often seeks a category captain for support. A category captain is a supplier who is more than willing to form an alliance with a retailer to help them improve performance/profit within a said category.

For example, let’s say Target has its own private brand of baby food but is consistently struggling to manage that category because they don’t know what kind of baby food parents want. In order to gain a level of expertise, they might partner up with a national brand, such as Gerber. Once Gerber is on board, they begin putting their products on the shelves… This a win-win for both parties because now Target is finally able to make money, and Gerber also makes money from having their products sold. 

So what about Target’s private brand of baby food? It might grow and expand, or Gerber might try to limit it now that it’s in control.

In marketing, “letting the fox into the hen house” is a saying that describes a situation where a vendor takes advantage of its position by attempting to take over the entire category.  This might be the situation here at my local Target as the image to the left shows Gerber taking the prize for dominating this specific isle...