Making brands more distinctive

Would you feel miffed if your favourite quirky, good for you, smoothie brand was owned by a sugar-swilling, fizzy pop uber brand? Or the independent coffee shop whose wifi you were nicking for the price of a small espresso turned out to be backed by a multinational giant like Tesco?

The BBC reports that many are up in arms at being “duped” by the likes of Tesco who present their Harris and Hoole coffee shops as individual and independent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20943739

The whole thing raises some serious questions over how branding can be used to convince people to buy your product. Get your positioning and values right and you can get the right people to buy from you. If the UK coffee slurping population wants independent, quirky, Mumford and Sons muzaking retailers then why not give it to them – is it really ersatz if you believe it to be true?

A small part of me wants to rebel against the cynical mass-marketing of what should be home-grown and small-scale. Another, probably larger, part of me welcomes the considered approach by major brands to develop their products and present themselves in a way that connects with customers’ aspirations rather than steamrollering them with low-value bogofs or the like.

Maybe parts of a large brand portfolio can be independent of the mother brand, just sending cash home every year like a good kid. Or maybe it really is a cynical ploy to leverage the goodwill that independent retailers and producers have built up over the past 10 years.

There was a point when Google was a young upstart, same with Pizza Hut, Ben and Jerries and even Coca Cola. Get your product and branding right and I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, no matter who is bank rolling you.

Joe