Rockstar advertising is a rarity on Argentine screens. In the midst of a batch dominated by all products that are presented as aimed at ABC1 households, it is striking that the ad for the new brand of energy drinks is starring a bus driver, a construction worker and a delivery girl. delivery, all trades that almost never appear on the radars of local advertisers.

Behind Rockstar there is also not an SME from the suburbs but a multinational like Pepsico that chose a clearly popular and massive positioning -the campaign has cumbia singer Pablo Lescano as a celebrity- to present the brand with which it seeks to go out and fight for leadership that today Speed ​​and Red Bull are competing. "At a global level we bought the Rockstar brand in what represents the entry into the category of energizers. In Argentina we are betting on positioning ourselves as an innovative and different proposal in the category, with a price within everyone's reach. The idea from the ads and the launch of the brand is to be very empathic with the situation of the people", explained Martín Watson, director of Marketing for the South of Latin America of Pepsico.

The case of Rockstar can perfectly function as a sample of where practically all the big players in mass consumption are looking.

In an economy that looks more and more like the one lived in 2001 and 2002, companies and brands are aware that the only way to survive is to reformulate their business strategy and adapt to the new normal, of an Argentina in deep recession and with close to 40% of the population living below the poverty line.

In this context -which everything indicates is here to stay at least for a while- some winning brands are already emerging, which are the ones that knew how to better read the market and adapt their proposal to the needs of the consumer. The list includes everything from the St. Tropez toiletries line to Otowil tinctures, passing through Los Haroldos wines, Don Yeyo pastes, Duplex laundry soap or Alto Poder repellents.

In many cases, they are names that until recently were unknown to many of their current customers, which shows the speed with which Argentines are changing purchasing habits. "The social imaginary is dominated by a position of caution, where saving plays a key role, which explains why new B brands have appeared in eight out of ten households," says Fernando Moiguer, director of the consulting firm Moiguer Compañía de Estrategia.

"The big winners are the brands that have been building for a long time and today are adding consumers who are looking for a more convenient purchase. The key today more than ever is to offer good quality products that can compete on price," explains Joaquín Jordán, owner of the advertising agency Password.

Password is the agency behind a large part of the emerging brands, in a list of clients that includes from consolidated names such as Manaos, Querubín or Cuca Trap to others that were gaining ground in the pandemic such as Doña Auroa dairy products, Celosas cookies or the Maid wipes.

"We present ourselves as the agency that works with family and Argentine mass consumption companies, but lately we are also being called by some multinationals who see how these new brands are taking away market share," says Jordán.

The new Manaus

It's still early to know how the film will end, but the reference to what happened in 2001 is inevitable. Twenty years ago the collapse of consumption was accompanied by the emergence and consolidation of a handful of new brands that practically from one day to the next began to play equal to the leaders.

The list includes from Manaus and Querubín to Marolio, Cachafaz or Pitusas. "Today the panorama is similar to what was experienced in 2001, but with an important difference. The new B brands that are emerging are brands with marketing. There is a popularization of concepts such as branding and, for better or for worse, all medium-sized companies they have their own marketing team. They are not just crisis brands," Moiguer assured.

spill effect

The new scenario represents renewed challenges for the leading brands. "The leading brands are going to have to solve this situation by building brand value in the product, because if they don't make that leap they won't be able to sustain the price differential. At one point it can be said that the polynomial formula of what it is has changed. a brand," said Moiguer.

For the new players in mass consumption, the brands that emerged in the post-2001 crisis work in many cases as an example to follow.

"The acceptance that a product can have generates a spillover effect, which allows these new players to build a broader catalog, increasing their offer. In this sense, the best examples are those experienced in 2001 with Querubín, which began as a line of lavandinas and gradually incorporated a whole family of cleaning products, or Manaus, which had a similar journey, adding new beverages beyond soft drinks, such as juices or mineral water," said Maximiliano Dorf, manager of Analytics at the consultancy firm Nielsen Argentina .

barriers raised

When it comes to competing on price, the new companies found a key ally in the low barriers that most mass consumption categories present today.

"From an industrial point of view, the barriers to entry are becoming lower. Due to the advancement of technology, it is becoming easier to manufacture good quality products and the new players in mass consumption are gaining ground," explains Dorf.

"It's a process that goes back a long way, but in our case during the pandemic we experienced very strong growth because people were encouraged to do more things for themselves. The consumer basically chooses us based on price, but when someone discovers that it can be done hair color at home and it works out well, it's a one-way street," said Luciana Frascogna, the owner of Otowil, the dye company that has its base of operations in San Fernando, Buenos Aires province.

Adaptability

When it comes to presenting a battle to the multinationals of mass consumption, the new players have the advantage of a capacity for adaptation and speed of response that can hardly be achieved by a larger company accustomed to working with several instances before making any decision.

"Competing against multinationals is difficult, but we always considered that guerrilla warfare and taking advantage of opportunities were our thing. Today we are very competitive in price because we have state-of-the-art machines and equipment, but we can also differentiate ourselves by our greater flexibility when it comes to of negotiating and our ability to resolve quickly and be creative. An example is what happened in the midst of the pandemic, when we launched an antibacterial soap under the Primordial brand in record time," explained Ignacio Michel, a partner at Establecimiento La Mariposa, a SME tucumana specialized in toiletry products that also knew how to take advantage of the gaps left by its larger rivals. Through its St. Tropez brand, the San Miguel de Tucumán-based company multiplied its sales tenfold, going from 50 tons per month to the current 500 tons.

revival kills wallet

Changes in consumer habits are not only due to the appearance and consolidation of new proposals but also due to the revival experienced by brands from the past.

Betting on reviving a classic from the past is the shortcut that many of the small and medium-sized companies that face the challenge of going out to compete with the millionaire wallets of multinational companies are betting on.

This is the path that Queruclor -the company of the brothers Daniel and Walter López- took when it bought Odex a few years ago -a brand that the multinational Colgate had discontinued. Another case is that of Duplex. The laundry soap brand that was in the hands of the North American Procter & Gamble now belongs to Treoland, the company that owns the El Gran Tornado wholesale supermarket chain.

The confectionery industry is another example of the potential offered by brands that have a long history and, therefore, are in a position to revive at the kiosk.

"The candy business is very particular because many times it does not depend so much directly on the price but on how much money the boy has in his hand to go to the kiosk. Today that number is the $50 bill. The problem is that 14 months ago With that money you bought twice as much as now," explains Rubén López, partner of La Dolce, the main candy wholesaler in Argentina and owner of emblematic kiosk brands such as Vauquita, Yummy or Billiken.

López points out that the classics such as Yummy and Billiken - he bought both of them a couple of years ago from the multinational Mondelez - are the ones that are gaining the most market share. "With Yummy's gums and Billiken's nougats today we can't cope because we offer higher margins to the kiosk than our larger competitors and we end up getting better business for them," says the businessman.

The response of the multis

Faced with the sustained advance of the new B brands, the multinationals are not sitting idly by. Almost without advertising, Cervecería y Maltería Quilmes - the leading company in the Argentine beer market and a subsidiary of the powerful group AB InBev - launched new brands considered "strategic" such as Hanover. These are proposals that compete exclusively by price in the segment of 80 pesos in returnable one-liter containers (almost half of what Stella Artois or Heineken cost).

At Unilever, for their part, they are betting on reformulating their portfolio not only at the brand level, but also in terms of presentations and packaging with their sights set on the hard-pressed pockets of Argentines. "Consumers look for brands that fit their budget but, in some cases, they also decide to invest in those that give them the benefit they need. In order to respond, at Unilever we have a broad portfolio that offers different proposals in both food and in home and personal care. We achieve this through two ways: with the brands we call value, more accessible and economical. Or like what we did last year with the launch of liquid soaps to dilute, Ala and Skip , a product that yields 3 liters but is 20% cheaper, which allows the consumer to continue accessing premium brands at a cheaper price", they explain in the multinational.