Check The Label Matches The Price

As I was courting my wife in the early sixties I found it helpful to spend time with her brothers and their mate Bruce. On weekends we would venture out to the local pubs in Port Melbourne, the suburb by the wharves in Melbourne - Woolloomooloo in Sydney had many similar establishments.

This was where I first learned the value of brands.

Many of the locals in the front bar had things to sell. Usually from the boot of their car behind the pub. Crays and portable TV’s were the hot items then. The products on sale were mostly highly portable because they had been moved quickly to and fro someone’s house nearby. Car radios were another hot item, to use the expression loosely.

But I was mainly interested in clothes. Being a young underpaid advertising junior, I was always looking for a bargain. You could buy jumpers I recall, but like all the “merchandise”, the brand tag on the collar was cut off – perhaps because they scratch your neck, or so I thought initially.

While I wouldn’t say categorically that they were stolen goods, I do know that the cops had trouble pinning anything on you if you couldn’t trace the merchandise by its brand – a bit like the famous email floating around Canberra this week.

Back to the brand less jumper. The colourful characters selling them had a pricing rule - always one third of the retail price of the branded product. They were honourable people in a dishonourable sort of way and I learned an early lesson on the value of brands.

Later in my advertising career I learned that a brand can be the most important thing for a company’s fortunes. Quite simply, if people believe in your brand they will pay more for it.

My early learning experiences from the blokes in the pub were occasionally interrupted by their sudden episodes of sabbatical leave for 12 to 18 months but they would always return with their low price brand less merchandise. It’s hard to give up a steady job - unless of course it is for life.

Brands are always under attack but usually because the owners don’t support them. A downturn like the present might seem a good reason to ease off but history shows it is best to keep supporting your brand. If you turn your back on your brand someone will fill the space.

The current trend is the growth of the “house” brands which are now mostly of comparable quality to the real thing. Many people think they are the real thing. Coles, and my good friends at our client Woollies are showing the way, along with others.

Recent research says that purchasers of house brands continue to grow with 40% of people buying more house brands than a year ago.

And there is plenty out there with Woollie’s “Select” having 1300 products in 60 categories.

The great David Ogilvy, the master of brands, would turn in his grave. He built and protected brands through great advertising. He had many imitators but few equals. Always the master with the wise word I still keep his quote “If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising.”

My colourful mates in the pub at Port Melbourne probably didn’t realise that they had started a new trend in retailing. They knew they were marketing house brands alright, but in their case it was always from someone else’s house.