Skip to main content

Generic foods

Kellogg's cornflakes are currently £1.99 for a 500gm box in my local supermarket - whereas their own brand box is 31p.  I am sure their own one will be appallingly bad - but I got a box.  I was seduced by its utilitarian style of packaging.  No imagery just two dull, lifeless colours and a font lacking in any elegance or decorative quality.  If you couldn't read it would be only the shape of the box - a standard cornflakes box shape - gave any obvious suggestion of what would be inside.  The result is a dramatic form of design that aims to emphasise just ONE particular quality, in this case the low price.  Nothing else matters so much as conveying that single idea.  All stores have their own generic branded low-cost alternatives and whatever colours or design are used the key point is always to put emphasis one thing -  in this case, of course, the 'cheapness' aspect.  Low-cost generic branding of cornflakes or chocolate relies on a quickly establishing one salient point  - and this emphasis works in the same way whatever store you are in.  The same ideas behind the marketing are shared by Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys etc - and readily understood by their customers, whether they are looking for those products or not.

Men largely prefer to present themselves in much the same way as low-cost generic packaging - even when they pay large either for Nike trainers or a bespoke suit - they are always embedding the basic core point of 'male' in their appearance.  The clothes might express taste or wealth or style - but they don't express individuality or variance from presenting as an alternative to standard-male models, that is their primary, number one requirement.  They ignore any individuation of masculinity so there can be no risk of ambiguity about the core value of the standard product.  Be it expensive designer-ware or from Primark, male clothing is in fact essentially a form of generic low-cost branding.  Sweaters and jeans, coats and jackets,  t-shirts and trainers can be whatever labels and styles - so long as the first thing any of these signify is 'Male'.