When we were little kids, grocery stores used to sell generic items. Back then, before we fell in love with minimalist design, they were kind of strange to us. Void of any fancy, colorful packaging or clever names, products simply read in bold black type what the product was. Beer, for example, was BEER. Potato chips, POTATO CHIPS. They didn’t co-mingle with the other brands in the store. They had their own aisle that could’ve easily been called Bomb Shelter Supplies, Government-Issued, or simply, Poor People Food. My humble lower class, single parent family, and most likely, enough other families, didn’t buy them. Perhaps the black type on white wasn’t eye-catching enough because we began to see the same products with the same bold black type but now on top of bright yellow.
Apparently, that didn’t do much for sales so someone came up with the idea of private labels that actually looked like the rest of the products in the store. Products that could co-mingle with the other products on the shelf and actually try to win customers over as they were comparative shopping. President’s Choice was one of these brands we remember. We even tried their COLA and thought it was far less superior than any of the other majors brands. And when it got out to one to of our friends that it was really just a store brand in disguise, we decided to stick with what all the cool kids were drinking.
This little trip down memory lane began the other day when we were in Vons. It’s the closet grocery store to us, and when we discovered they had an organic product line called, of all things, Organics, we couldn’t help but be reminded of those generic products we now think are actually pretty awesome.
Someone needs to bring them back in the form of an iconic, utilitarian brand that stands for all that is good. That’s the big idea here, folks. We see a huge opportunity for a transparent and sustainable company to create a generic brand simply called exactly what the product is. No logo. No brand name. An anti-brand, if you will, that is stripped from any filler or fluff and focused on providing the best products to the most amount of people.
When you wanted pasta sauce, you'd know the best PASTA SAUCE to buy. When you ordered a vodka and soda, for example, you’d get a VODKA and SODA. Whatever basic need or want, you could order it by name. Life would be simpler.
There would be no guesswork because each product and the way the company does business would be held up to the industry’s highest standards and there would be nothing “bad” or wasteful about them. From the ingredients and packaging to the marketing and distribution to the employee benefits and community work, this uber certified company and its products would be the gold standard of sustainability.
Customers would no longer have to stand in the aisles and continually read the labels only to find out that it’s not the brand they were trying to be sold. (Nice try, Eat Right.) Instead, our anti-brand would live up to its quiet promise.
Please bring back the super cool generic brand. The kind that was less about the fluff or hype and more about what's on the inside. One that is better for you, the community and the planet.
We're fans of the Organics brand, but it's not exactly what we had in mind. We know someone will do it much better.
  
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