Why Are Retail Brands So One Way?

(Retailer pride: an impossible dream?)

One of the really interesting developments in branding over the past 25 or so years has been the creation of brands with which consumers identify and participate. Nike was the pioneer, of course, but other brands -- like Cadillac of late, and Abercrombie and Fitch, and i-*.* from Apple -- have also accomplished this. Naturally, the degree to which brands have achieved this objective has varied, but all over the country you will find people who pay lots of money for t-shirts with brand logos, or who build "I love..." websites.

A major step forward in this area has been Social Vibe, a service that connects brands to social media influencers by offering them social compensation, charitable donations, and great creative with which to adorn their personal web pages. You join, find a brand you love, and pick a piece of creative to feature on your profile. Full disclosure: SocialVibe was a C:SF client, so take my endorsement for what you will.

But whether you are thinking about t-shirts or beautiful brand graphics for personal pages, there are some brands that seem not to participate in this at all. And that "some" seems to include most retailers. To prove the point, let's consider what someone would be trying to communicate about themself with a t-shirt bearing the following logos:

Budweiser: American, patriotic, perhaps sports fan, solid, All American
Pepsi: Youthful, perhaps brash, celebrity oriented
Dr. Pepper: individualistic, contrarian
Body Shop: green, socially responsible, organic, natural
M&Ms: kid like, irreverent, geeky cool

Now, consider the following massive brands. What would a t-shirt bearing their logos stand for?

BestBuy
Dillard's
Publix
Wal-Mart

If I saw one, the message I would get is "BestBuy gave out free t-shirts." It would not compute that someone actually paid money -- financially sought out their logo on a t-shirt.

Now I should be honest and say I don't know if these companies sell branded wear. For all I know there is a robust business in Dillard's tanktops, and a vibrant eBay community trading Dillard's designs like others trade Beanie Babies.

OK. So...there are a couple of retailer brands that I could see getting people to buy their shirts -- so long as they were pretty cheap:

Target: because chances are it would have a cool logo design
Whole Foods: greeen, etc.

But it's not a "natural" in the way that selling Pepsi shirts might be.

The point is that most retail brands don't really seek to get consumers to identify with their brands. I think this is a big mistake because many retail brands really make possible a certain lifestyle by offering a range of accoutrement's associated with living a certain kind of existence.

Think about the following:

Macy's: upscale, aspirational lifestyle, a little blingy
Wal-Mart: unabashedly blue collar, 'Merican. This is actually an image a lot of people seek to communicate. Jeff Foxworthy don't sell a lot of redneck books fer nuthin'.



PiggyWiggly: kid at heart, all American, solid
Dillard's: unabashedly Southern and cultured

The list goes on.

Digital offers a huge platform by which retailers can begin to create those sorts of participatory brands. Let's hope they capitalize on digital to do so.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.