Loblaw's No Name Store Brand Uses Stripped Down Advertising

January 26, 2010

loblaw store front Defying new retail packaging and design standards, a year ago Loblaw relaunched its No Name store brand, which coincidentally fell in synch with consumers' back-to basics shopping approach and the 1978 roots of the no-frills brand.

But the company's new heavyweight advertising campaign for its No Name brand is far from no-frills, according to a report in the Edmont Journal (Canada). The ads may be simple, but the message is fresh and frequent.

Bensimon Byrne, Loblaw's ad agency, is bringing life to a product that employs no photographs or graphics, just simple lower case black type against a strong gold background. As simple and bold as the products, the ads feature no actors or art - just cheesy organ music and scrolling black type against a yellow background.

"They are produced for a fraction of what a [standard] Canadian TV commercial costs," David Rosenberg, creative director at Bensimon Byrne, told the Edmont Journal. "There is no film, there are no actors." So far, the agency has created 19 No Name spots since the brand was relaunched.

See one of the new ads that says: "We don't have a single item under $2. We have 300." Then the No Name type scrolls onto the screen and that is all.

"[Loblaw] was looking to get back to [a message conveying] no gimmicks, no fakery -- just high-quality products at the lowest price possible," Rosenberg said. The No Name brand was last advertised in 1990, according to the report.

"We have some research that shows that there has been a value shift in society, one that isn't as temporal as the recession, which has caused us to change our consumer-purchase patterns based on value, a focus on high quality for the best price possible," Rosenberg said. "Whether it's No Name or President's Choice, it's incredibly important to never rest on your laurels. That's the only way you stay a leader, especially with increased competition."

The reason the brand was relaunched and went back to basics is that the line of 2,900 products began looking too similar to President's Choice, Loblaw's higher-end store brand, the company said.

"Two years ago it was spectacular packaging, similar in many cases to what the national brands were offering," says Ian Gordon, senior vice-president of grocery at Loblaw.

Being similar to other products, however, was not the brand objective. "When you went into the frozen pizza aisle, you would have to hunt for [No Name pizza]," he said, but "the real impetus for this was about restoring the in-store distinctiveness of the packaging."

According to JoAnn Hines, a packaging consultant specializing in consumer-product branding, said No Name's packaging is effective "because [Loblaw] simplified the message: no bells and whistles, no complicated decision-making. "It looks as though Loblaw really knows who the core shopper is for that line and they really understand that customer. The packaging meets what the consumer is expecting."

Loblaw executives declined to disclose the brands sales or profit figures, but Gordon said the company is "confident" the changes are making a "difference with customers, and we have research that would indicate it."

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Keywords: business, companies, food and beverage, industry, loblaws, markets, no name, private label food, private label marketing, private label non-food, store brand food, store brand marketing, store brand non-food

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