Our belief in brands
by Richard Broadbent
To coincide with the hottest weather in England since 1911, my immune system has decided now is the perfect time to let me have both barrels of an almighty head cold. As horrible as this is, such an experience can give you a real insight into the power of brands and the faith that we, as consumers, put in them.
Like all people too busy for a frivolous case of the sniffles, I ransacked my first aid box to try and find something that could root out my sickness the fastest. Instinctively I shunned my usual 20p supermarket paracetamol for something with a bit more ‘oomph’, and which came in a flashy little box. The difficulty then was to decide which of the variety of brand named drugs to take. The back of each of the packets purport to solve all ailments from blocked noses to shivers, and then you catch yourself thinking back to half remembered adverts for guidance, as if they were in some way educational health programmes. In the end I went for the most expensive cold cure I could find. I’m still waiting for it to work.
Whilst most consumers will be more rational than this when purchasing products, in an emergency prominent brands that look smart and act confidently have a surprising sway over us. If the product also performs, and by doing so makes our lives easier, it is amazing how dedicated we will then be to it. That trust is then transmitted to other products under the same brand name, because we believe that if product A worked well, product B will too. When this happens we are willing to ignore cheaper alternative products sitting beside our trusted brand on the supermarket shelf because we need something we can rely on to do the business for us. It is this logic that leads to those badly dubbed detergent and air freshener adverts in which actors give testimonials about how a particular brand was their saviour in the past.
Whilst this is good news to businesses, and the stuff of successful branding, there is a downside. Part of my cold manifested itself in a rather painful sore throat; however, when I looked for a remedy I instinctively asked for a Strepsil and not a throat sweet. The successful branding of this product meant that to me the brand name was synonymous with the accurate terminology for that product. Whilst the Strepsil brand is not in this situation yet, there have been many cases whereby a brand has become so successful that its name is used generically by consumers. When this happens, s.1(1) of the Trades Mark Act 1994, will prevent the name from being registered and protected as the name no longer distinguishes the goods and services of one business from that of another. This has happened in the past to brand names such as Hoover, Xerox, Refrigerator, Launderette and Biro, and it takes a creative and astute branding strategy to retain the intellectual property and market value of a brand, and prevent it becoming part of everyday language. A brand name that is indistinguishable from others in the market loses much of its impact.
It is no coincidence that the brand names that have now become generic parts of everyday language also belong to non-luxury products that have become indispensable to us. When this happens it is often the case that as a new concept is incorporated into our lives we either lack the vocabulary to label it accurately, or forego the clunky technical term and use the easier to remember brand name. Hence ‘Hoover’ became easier to say than ‘vacuum cleaner’.
In this way, a bad cold can bring to the surface the faith that we all hold in bold brand names, especially when they deliver. It is a good reminder that the trick of good branding with everyday products is that it is great to be indispensable, but not too indispensable.
