Jump off the brand wagon to stop being taken for a ride
Until a couple of years ago, you would never have caught me buying a supermarket's own-label laundry detergent instead of the branded product. To settle for second-best for the sake of saving a few pennies, I would probably have said, you would have to be either very poor or extraordinarily tight-fisted.
The day I crossed the branding Rubicon came when, shopping for the family in a Tesco supermarket, I was unable to find an economy-sized box of Unilever's Persil Colour Care washing powder. Picking up a box of Tesco's own-label version, I noticed the words "Cleans as well as the leading brand" emblazoned on the carton. Would a company of Tesco's hard-earned reputation dare lie, I asked myself? Next, I noticed that the product was not just a few pennies cheaper than Persil, but a staggering 35 per cent less, adjusting for the amount used per wash. I chucked it into the trolley.
At home, as far as any of us could tell, the Tesco washing powder really did work as well as Persil. So then I tried Tesco's own-label nappies. Admittedly I was not the one having to wear them, but it seemed to me that they were not only cheaper than Procter & Gamble's Pampers, but looked prettier, felt softer and fitted much better, too.
In no time at all, and without even thinking about it very much, I became an own-label junkie. Looking at our family's shopping list today, I am amazed to discover that the majority of products on it are own-label: pasta, rice, pulses, olive oil, cheese, eggs, baked beans, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and spices, breakfast cereals, jam, marmalade, children's soft drinks, canned fruit, canned sweetcorn, automatic dishwasher powder, rinse aid, kitchen foil, nappy sacks, refuse sacks, sponge wipes, kitchen towel, food wrap, even light bulbs - plus, of course, all the fresh produce such as bread, fruit, meat, fish, vegetables and items from the delicatessen. Among the few branded survivors are Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Heinz Tomato Ketchup and Marmite yeast extract - products that so closely define their category that I find it hard to imagine anything else would do. At least, for now.
I realise you have more interesting things to read than my shopping list, but the point I want to make is that I appear to be a very small part of a very large trend. This week, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive brought gloom to the branded consumer products sector by delivering profit warnings on the same day. Both said they were having to spend more than they had planned on advertising to protect their market share, with Unilever in particular highlighting the threat from own-label and deep discount stores.
For companies such as these, the golden age of marketing lasted roughly from the 1950s to the 1970s. In those days, the quality of packaged goods varied widely from one manufacturer to another, but the arrival of commercial television allowed big brand owners to reach mass audiences with advertisements explaining why their products were better. Often, you would see white-coated boffins explaining the favourable results of laboratory tests or market researchers testifying that nine out of 10 consumers preferred the advertised product to the mysterious Brand X.
The conclusion to be drawn was that it made sense to buy the advertised brand because, even though it might cost a bit more than competing products, its superior quality meant it offered better value for money. The clever people were the ones who understood this price/value calculation, and the schmucks were those who bought whatever was cheapest.
More recently, however, we have entered the era of product parity in which high quality has become the price of entry to any given market and, with few exceptions, there is little to choose between different products in any given category. So now, the clever people are those who buy the own-label item while the schmucks are those who go on paying more for the leading brand, thinking they are getting a superior product but in reality just paying extra for the advertising.
The problem for Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive and the rest is that the schmucks are getting cleverer all the time. In the US, the consumer who shops at Wal-Mart in the morning and Neiman Marcus in the afternoon - saving money at the discount store to spend it at the luxury retailer - has already become a clichè. Once, aspirational shopping might have meant trading up from a cheaper household product to the leading brand. Now, trading down to the cheaper household product is aspirational twice over: first, because it makes the shopper look smart, and second, because it leaves money available for status goods she could not otherwise afford.
For packaged goods companies, I am afraid I see no happy ending to this story. Most of them are feverishly shedding their second-tier brands out of a recognition that there will soon be only room in each category for the brand leader and own-label. What happens after that is anybody's guess, but it looks very much as though the supermarket shelves are in the process of being debranded - or rather, retailer branded. JP Morgan predicts own-label's share of the European grocery market will climb from 22 per cent to nearly 30 per cent by 2010, implying that the restructuring so far seen in the food and household goods industries is just the start.
As luck would have it, the day after Unilever and Colgate delivered their warnings, Tesco reported that its underlying pre-tax profits rose 24 per cent in its fiscal first half. Now there, if ever I saw one, is a company on the right side of a trend.
名牌掉下超市货架
一两年前，你绝不会看见我购买某个超市自有商标的(own-label)洗衣粉，我只购买有品牌的产品。我那时可能会说，为了节约几个便士而满足于二流选择的人，要么是非常贫穷，要么是特别吝啬。
我越过品牌界限的那一天，是在Tesco超市购买家用品的时候。我找不着联合利华(Unilever)公司的大包装Persil保色洗衣粉，就顺手拿起了一盒Tesco自有商标的同类产品，我发现硬纸盒上醒目的写着：“洗涤效果，不下名牌。”我自问道：像Tesco这样辛苦挣来其名望的公司难道敢撒谎吗？接下来，我发现这个产品比Persil不止便宜几个便士而已；在调整了每次洗衣的用量之后，它惊人地便宜了35%。我把它扔进了购物车里。
回到家一使用，至少就我们看来，Tesco洗衣粉确实和Persil的洗涤效果一样好。因此我后来又试用了Tesco自有商标的尿布。当然，戴尿布的人不是我自己，但是在我看来它们不仅比宝洁公司(Procter Gamble)的“帮宝适”(Pampers)尿布更便宜，而且看上去更漂亮、摸上去更柔软、戴上去也更合身。
于是，我不假思索，马上就成了一个“自有商标迷”。看一看今天我家的购物单，我惊奇地发现单子上开列的大部分产品都是店家自己的品牌，包括意大利面条、大米、豆类、橄榄油、奶酪、鸡蛋、烘豆、罐装西红柿、西红柿汤、香料和调味品、谷类早餐食品、果酱、带皮橘子酱、儿童软饮料、罐头水果、罐头甜玉米、洗碗粉、过水增亮剂、炊用箔纸、大袋的尿布、垃圾袋、海绵揩布、厨用毛巾、食物覆膜、甚至灯泡，当然还要加上所有的新鲜食品，例如面包、水果、肉类、鱼类、蔬菜以及各种熟食品。只有少数名牌产品幸存，如Kellogg公司的玉米片、Heinz番茄酱、Marmite酵母精，这些产品是同类产品的最佳代表，我很难想象别的品牌能与其媲美，至少目前是如此。
我也明白比起我的购物单，你有更有意思的东西可读，不过我要说的意思是：我好像是一种大潮流中的小小一份子。本周，联合利华和高露洁-棕榄(Colgate-Palmolive)两家公司于同一天发布了利润警报，使品牌消费品领域蒙上了阴影。两家公司都说，它们不得不比原计划花更多的费用做广告，以保护其市场份额。联合利华还特别强调了来自店家自有商标和大折扣廉价商店的威胁。
对这些名牌公司来说，行销的黄金时代大致是从20世纪50年代持续到70年代。在那些日子里，各厂商生产的包装商品(packaged goods)之间质量差别很大，而电视的普及使拥有品牌的厂商能通过广告向观众传达信息，解释为什么自己的产品更好一些。那时你经常可以看到穿白大褂的科技人员在说明理想的实验结果，或者看到市场研究人员在证明90%的消费者更喜欢广告推销的产品，而不喜欢未指明的某某品牌。
这些广告要使人们得出的结论就是：购买广告推销的品牌是明智的，即使它比竞争产品贵一些，但它质量上乘，这意味着它更加物有所值。懂得计算这种性价比的人是聪明人，只挑最便宜的东西买的人是蠢人。
不过，近年来我们进入了“产品雷同”时代，高质量已成为任何一个市场的入场券，而且，几乎无一例外的，任何一类产品里都没有多少差异性可作为挑选依据。所以如今的聪明人是购买店家自有商标产品的人，蠢人则是继续花更多的钱购买名牌的人，那些自以为买到了胜人一筹的产品，而其实只是为厂商广告多付了一笔钱的人。
联合利华、高露洁-棕榄等公司面临的问题是，蠢人们正不断地变得聪明起来。在美国，上午去沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)超市采买，下午又去Neiman Marcus豪华店购物，即在廉价店省下钱来又在奢侈品零售店花掉的消费者，已经成为普遍现象。在过去，时尚的购物可能意味着：不买较便宜的家用产品，而买领先品牌的产品。现在，购买较便宜的家用产品是一种双重的时尚：第一，因为它使购物的妇女显得很聪明，第二，因为它可以省下钱来购买她本来买不起的，标志着社会地位的高档商品。
对于包装商品公司而言，恐怕我看不出这个故事会有什么圆满结局。由于意识到每一类产品很快就将只能容纳顶级品牌和自有商标，这些公司大多正忙于抛弃它们的二级品牌。谁知道这以后会发生什么，但超市的货架似乎正在经历一个“去品牌化”的过程，更确切地说，是一个采用零售商自有品牌的过程。据摩根大通(JP Morgan)预测，欧洲食品杂货市场上，2010年以前自有商标的份额将从22%上升到将近30%，这意味着迄今见于食品和家用品产业的重组还只是刚刚起步。
碰巧，就在联合利华和高露洁发布警报的后一天，Tesco发布报告称，在上半个财政年度，其基本税前利润上升了24%。你瞧，我眼前可就是一家顺应了潮流的公司。
嗯，我倒想知道Tesco自有商标的玉米片吃起来怎样？
