Rise in Non-Branded Search is Disrupting Sports and Active Nutrition

We live in a non-branded search world, but what does that mean for key active and sports nutrition categories? It’s plain and simple, the rise of non-branded search has disrupted the sports and active nutrition industry. So, what’s going on? I attribute it to a combination of (1) the low barriers of entry causing brand/product proliferation (2) strength of marketplaces like Amazon needing more selection to feed its flywheel (3) consumers realizing quality products exist everywhere and having a willingness to try them out. Meet the brand agnostic consumer that bring a broad and sophisticated range of purchase criteria with them when making decisions. Yes, occasions remain where brand is the prime driver, but it would be exhausting for consumers in today’s market to be passionate about all product categories. That means the sole focus on brands vanish in favor for product attributes as the definer of quality. Consumers today are searching for categories (with or without generic descriptors), rather than brands. 80% of keyword searches on Amazon are generic. That means most consumers are searching for “women’s pre-workout” or “chocolate whey protein” instead of Alani Nu or Optimum Nutrition. Since the bulk of search queries are now unbranded search, active and sports nutrition brands should be redefining their product differentiators. Fact is, almost all active or sports nutrition customers shop on Amazon. It’s basically a default utility in America today, so overlooking the consumer behavior of using non-branded search more frequently would be a mistake regardless of how strong you believe your brand is in the market. With the help of my data partner Stackline, I'll look at how four of the biggest sports and active nutrition product categories are being affected by the rise in non-branded search.