It turns out that it’s not as simple as translating your product branding into the language of the place where you’re going to sell the thing. A recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research tested the effectiveness of marketing for different products with college students in New Delhi. Packaging copy was written in English, Hindi and mixtures thereof for chocolate and laundry detergent. This brief article in the NY Times covers the highlights of the study’s findings. It seemed that the students preferred English or an English-rich hybrid for chocolate while Hindi or a Hind-rich mixture for laundry detergent. Aradhna Krishna, the study’s author, attributed this the fact that English is associated with global and cosmopolitan upper class, while Hindi (probably the language spoken at home) is associated with inclusion and family.

Interestingly, products that were marketed by multinational companies with all-Hindi packaging copy were viewed poorly. Professor Krishna explains, “It backfires. It’s like, ‘Who is this guy using Hindi?’”

Tags: Advertising, Brand Naming, In-the-News, Product Naming
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Not long ago, it would have been far-fetched to consider a Safeway brand synonymous with “certified organic.” But the last few years have seen a mainstreaming of organic products across the board, and in-store brands are finally getting a little panache – right down to brand name creation.

Two of Safeway’s store brands, O Organics and Eating Right, found immediate success from their debut. These product brands speak to people who are looking for healthier foods that are still good deal. (And who isn’t these days?) O Organics sales reached $150 million when it launched in 2005 and increased to $400 million in 2008 while Eating Right is expected to bring in $200 million this year. In a highly unusual move, these brands soon will be showing up in competitive supermarkets, as well, in the hopes that Safeway can further expand revenues.

In-store brands are generally cheaper than outside food brands, because of lower marketing overhead. But in this case, a little added branding focus has gone a long way. O Organics, for example, is an excellent product brand name. The O, like the numeral for zero, is a transparent communication of purity, telegraphing natural, unprocessed food. Eating Right is also effective in its straightforwardness. We all know that we’re supposed to be “eating right” and the name for this line of products communicates an easy way to follow this common advice.

It will be interesting to see if other grocery stores follow in Safeway’s footsteps — increasing their naming and branding efforts, more effectively competing against national brands, and then broadening their sales scope to include other grocery chains.

Tags: Advertising, Brand Naming, Food Branding, naming
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