Supermarkets have had No Frills brands forever but tended to be inferior (bottom of barrel beer, cling wrap that doesn’t cling, salt that clumps). Kirkland departs from that.
What is a little surprising is thd success despite the uninspiring design (unlike While Foods which prettifies it’s own line with modern color schemes, design and logos).
Well, that harkens back to when generic brands were big in the 1970s, they were intentionally extremely plain to get across the point that it's no-frills.
"The idea behind them was by eliminating the cost for logos, descriptive copy, and photos/illustrations on the packaging, the savings could be passed on to consumers. Even though much of these were stock images anyway and in reality bore little extra cost in the actual manufacturing process."
It just shows that all the focus on design is not needed if you produce quality products over a long time. Once you have a reputation there is no need for constant “modern” redesign. Just keep the quality up.
It’s nowhere near as simple as that. Store brand products have one special, massive advantage over non-store products. They don’t need to fight for shelf space - they are guaranteed it. As a result they don’t need to market heavily because they will automatically get the exposure they need. Try doing that with a non-store brand. Chances are you will go bust before you get the opportunity to build a reutation for quality.
The other issue here is that an overtly ‘basic’ brand name and trade dress is a form of marketing. Some people will go out of their way to seek out such products, for them its useful product differentiation and in fact it works exactly the same way as brand differentiation. It’s not actually any cheaper either, it isn’t any less expensive to print a generic label as a fancy one. The guveaway is packaging quality, it’s usualy comparable on store brand goods because in reality people aren’t looking to trade off quality for price. They’re trying to get quality products cheaper. It’s all just signaling.
What is a little surprising is thd success despite the uninspiring design (unlike While Foods which prettifies it’s own line with modern color schemes, design and logos).