A Few Thoughts on Branding After Travelling in Europe
In Europe, we stayed several times in rental apartments we found through the invaluable VRBO website. One advantage of these apartments is that we can cook breakfast, avoiding the high-priced breakfasts at many hotels.
So I found myself shopping for orange juice in Austria, with a number of choices at hand, but none recognizable to me. Skeptics of capitalism often point to branding and brand-based advertising as particular wastes of resources. But I would have loved to see an orange juice brand I recognized. Brands are essentially a guarantee of predictability -- whether I like the taste or not, I know what a Big Mac will taste like in Omaha or Beijing. Brands are an enormous aid to shopping and making choices, and in this manner create real value for us as consumers. I missed recognizable brands when I was in Europe.
PS- Coca-Cola and Pepsi are obviously the exceptions to this predictability game. Diet Coke, called Coke Light in Europe, tastes entirely different in Europe than it does in the US -- in fact it tastes more like what Diet Pepsi tastes like in the US. Which is ironic, and fitting I guess, because Diet Pepsi in Europe tastes a lot like American Diet Coke.
