Copycat packaging

Design purists are emphatic when asked about the circumstances in which it is acceptable for a brand to mimic aspects of a rival’s packaging or product features. “Never,” they will insist, “Brands should always be original and innovative”. This suggests that marketers are not listening to the purists, given the number of brands that mimic brand leaders.

Me-too brands can be seen everywhere. And when it comes to launching a brand, the risk is minimised if someone else has already done the groundwork for you by launching something similar.

Interbrand London chief executive Tony Allen believes that there are “no situations” where one brand should imitate another. He says: “If you believe you can draw value from what someone else has done, it will be defensive.”

He accepts that there are products that have imitated others and made money, but believes there is a “grave danger” in copying other brands, because it is easy to overstep the mark and infringe on their trademark.

Not all designers are against some element of copying in brand design, but believe that you have to know why you are doing it. Innovation is better than copying, but in reality there are situations where the risks of trying something new are too great to justify.

Golden rules

Corporate Edge director Jonathan Hall says that three elements have to be considered when designing a brand: the point of view of the organisation, how customers will react and the competitive situation. He says: “You should go for innovation in design, products and services if there is a genuine desire for change by the consumer”.

He gives the example of a past Corporate Edge client, Cadbury’s chocolate bar Fuse, which was launched in a chocolate sector that, although already well served, was regarded as conservative, with brand leaders such as Mars doing much the same thing for 40 years.

Hall also gives an example of a case where copying some elements of a brand leader’s position produced a positive result.

Travel Inn, the budget hotel chain, was launched by Whitbread in the late-Eighties and borrowed heavily from the first into the market, Travelodge. Hall says: “It made sense for Travel Inn to piggy back on the brand equity and awareness of Travelodge. Travel Inn overtook Travelodge in the mid-Nineties in market share.”

Travelodge marketing director Peter Halsey accepts that Travel Inn borrowed much of its branding from Travelodge, but believes that this helped to build the market overall.

He says: “When Travelodge entered the market in 1985, there was a very large gap between unbranded and full-service hotels. When Travel Inn entered, it didn’t steal market share from us – it ate further into the unbranded market.”

While he accepts that Travel Inn has overtaken Travelodge in market share, he believes his brand still has leadership in terms of loyalty and recognition, which, he says, are crucial in the budget hotel market. He adds: “I wouldn’t say that copying is an opportunity for success, but I would say that if somebody has recognised a market with an opportunity, offering something is no bad strategy.”

Throughout the Nineties the battle of brand copycats was fought out ferociously as the owners of leading brands sought to stamp out what they saw as attempts to “pass off” own-label products as established names.

The legendary spat between Coca-Cola and Sainsbury’s over the retailer’s own-label sub-brand, Classic Cola, ended when the supermarket agreed to alter the packaging.

According to Lee Coomber, creative director of Wolf Ollins, which worked on Tesco’s own-brand range, it is better for retailers to let their brand dominate the own-label products, rather than create sub-brands that imitate the brand leaders.

He says: “We worked with Tesco on own-brand – with 40,000 product lines, they had a me-too strategy, deliberately trying to pick up the category clues and exploit them. Some of the own-brand stuff is better than the branded products, but by following a me-too strategy, the only thing you are going to fight on is price.”

He believes that being an innovator is not always a guarantee of market leadership and that being the first to do something does not always provide that elusive – and sometimes expensive – concept of “first mover advantage”.

He points to brands such as Apple and Bang & Olufsen, which excel in originality, but are by no means brand leaders. He adds: “Innovation is more exciting and motivating, so why wouldn’t you do it? The downside is that with copying you are spreading your risk because someone else has already educated the market.”

He says that the design of Virgin brands are not particularly innovative. It uses designs that combine the Virgin brand name with simple idents that distinguish the sub-category of the product. For instance, the Virgin Books brand uses the Virgin name incorporated into a bookshelf design. However, despite its simplicity, Virgin often shakes up markets that it enters.

Stephen Bell, creative director of Coley Porter Bell, which designed the red Virgin credit card, says that the launch “challenged conventions” because it disregarded the standard colour language of financial cards, where gold and platinum denote the high end of the spectrum, and invented a new design language.

He adds:”Today, the Gold Card is available to and owned by most consumers – and high street banks and money lenders are thrusting ever more precious metals under our noses to entice us to sign up. But does a Gold or Platinum Credit Card reflect our personality, our lifestyle, or our personal taste?”

Different positions

Since its launch in January, some 150,000 Virgin credit card accounts have been opened, and, according to Virgin Money communications director Gordon Maw, the brushed metal design has proved the most popular, while the orange peel design is the least popular. He says design has become increasingly important in credit cards, because people may have two or three in their wallet and pull out the one they find most visually appealing.

Malcolm Hatton, managing director of design agency Splash of Paint, says: “When products are the same, there is even more reason to position them differently. Every company has a personality, and in design we are trying to capture the essence of the product and the company.” He adds that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are an example of similar products that are differentiated by their brand cultures.

As production technology improves, the real differences between products decreases and the world of consumer capitalism moves towards a dishwater-grey reality of unbrandable commodities. Design and branding become more important in the attempt to differentiate these more or less identical goods and services. However, it runs the risk of irritating consumers by promoting imaginary, but unimportant differences.

Market leaders are not necessarily those with the strongest and most original design, but they are generally the ones that will have a longer lifespan and better margins.