Major brands not only define American culture, but also often define whom a person is and what it means to be “normal” or “cool”.  Since the majority of Americans have the inability to separate wants from needs, large corporate brands are incorporated into our everyday lives.  However, the future of large brands is under scrutiny with distrust in corporations, increased consumer control and a change in the state of mind of society.  In order for branding to remain successful, companies must de-brand their products in order to gain or retain consumer attention.The concept of branding originated as a trust factor in consumerism.  A person trusted that a familiar brand of peanut butter would not be deadly, so they bought and consumed it.  However, this consumer trust in large brands has dwindled as corporate American has constantly proved itself untrustworthy and corrupt.  Because of this, anti-brand campaigns (in the form of books, websites and word-of-mouth) are underway, teaching consumers how to avoid large brands, or “de-brand” their lives.

In addition to this brand dis-trust, companies no longer own their brands, consumers do.  Consumers control the success of large brands and their future.  Today’s social media movement is stealing corporate control over mainstream media and giving more control to word-of-mouth advertising on a large scale.

When it comes to advertising, more and more Americans are becoming smarter and are aware of certain strategies such as product placement.  In order to preserve marketing success, large corporations have de-branded their products during product placement, also known as “product displacement.”  These companies place their product in movies, TV shows, etc., and intentionally change their product’s name on the actual picture.  For example, VitaminWater has changed the bottle’s text to “MeatWater”, Jack Daniels has changed the bottle’s text to “Jake Danzels”, and Pepsi has changed the bottle’s text to “Pecsi” in certain campaigns.

This confusing product displacement works like this:  the audience sees the product with a change or typo in the brand and notices something is different.  They think about the products real name and associate this “different” brand with the “real” brand.  The audience has then spent more time thinking about the product than they would if the product was placed with its original name or logo.

Starbucks is taking this de-branding marketing strategy to a whole new level.  As a coffee shop, large portions of Starbucks’ target audience are fed up with corporate control over the chain and, in return, prefer local coffee shops.  First, many typical “coffee shop regulars” think small, simple and unique—none of which describe the fast-food-chain-headed Starbucks.  Many coffee shop regulars think “different is cool” and might even be part of the de-brand campaign.  Second, those who go to coffee shops to do work are immediately turned away by Starbucks while it offers expensive internet, excessive noise, corporate approved music, over-lighting and fresh-out-of-the-package food.  Starbucks has become a grab-and-go chain leaving customers feelings less and less welcome to stick around.

To solve their problem, Starbucks turned to de-branding as a marketing strategy to go back to their small coffee shop roots and “faking” being “local”.  After all, the only thing trendier than Starbucks is a coffee shop far from Starbucks.  The first try at this simplification was in Seattle (where it all started), with the transformation of a corner Starbucks into the secretly corporate owned 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.  Other than its previous décor, this “local” coffee shop shows no sign of being affiliated with Starbucks.  The shop also serves beer and wine, the baristas pour everything by hand (rather than a button) and local events, such as open-mike night, fill the shop’s evenings.

Consumer trends are constantly changing, which means products and the marketing of products must change as well.  It is important for companies to think outside the box and try the unthinkable in order to gain or retain the success of a product.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.