How supermarket brands, ‘dupes’, and good-old poverty are shifting shopping habits
There’s a captivating Australian mystery regarding an unknown man found dead on Somerton Beach in 1948. The Somerton Man, as he would imaginatively be known, had a number of items on his person, including an Army Club cigarette packet containing Kensitas brand cigarettes.
At the time, it was common for Australians with airs to buy cheap branded cigarettes and keep them in a more expensive packet.
In this case, however, Kensitas was the expensive brand, and the Army Club packaging was seemingly being used to conceal the Somerton Man’s upper-class status. Was he a spy, mixing it undercover with the underclasses? When they found his luggage in a nearby railway locker, all the brand tags were cut out – but was it to hide his identity, or the brand of his high-class clobber?
The idea of post World War II Australians carrying cheap cigarettes in an expensive brand’s packaging seems quaint and faintly amusing, and reminds me of an aunty of mine who pulled similar moves in the ’90s with Home Brand cereal, placing the inner bag of the freshly-bought Fruity Rings into a beaten up Froot Loops box from the dark ages – a savvy move not quite savvy enough to trick the attuned tastebuds of sugar-crazed kids. But I recall applauding the move at the time, while scoffing at the idea of ever mistaking a home brand cereal for a proper, Brand Name one.
But, as Lou Reed once said, those were different times.
Nowadays, supermarket house brands are big business – and in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, any shame about shopping for the supermarket-branded items is a luxury of a snootier time. This past week saw the two major supermarket bosses front their shareholders at earnings calls, and the biggest revelation from Coles CEO, Leah Weckert, was that its Coles Finest house brand saw a sales increase of 20.4% across the country during the 12 months ending June 30.
For the uninitiated, Coles Finest is a range of over 240 “premium, quality products from the world’s best locations” and sits at the top end of its home brand range.
The brand was first launched in 2006 to mirror a similar ‘affordable premium’ brand in UK supermarket, Tesco, and relaunched onto shelves in March this year with redesigned stately black packaging and an artisan-friendly cursive font. A silver star-shaped logo mirrors the award medallions often proudly displayed on wines and cheeses, and a trolley filled with Coles Finest products could these days be mistaken for a haul from the ritziest delicatessen this side of the cummerbund store.
“We’ve come a long way from the Black and Gold days when it was seen as the poor alternative,” Weckert said of this recent sea change.
Coles Simply is at the bottom end of the supermarket’s house brands, a selection of 80 “value range” products emblazoned in what The Thrills’ Kate Richardson, managing partner of the agency behind the redesign, calls “a wonderfully warm yellow”.
The ‘Simply’ range also relaunched in late June, after Coles reported 8.8% revenue growth on its house brands for the March quarter.
“We really are seeing customers go at both ends of the spectrum to look for value, potentially for different purposes,” Weckert said at the time.
“Supporting customers who in particular, are potentially not dining out as much or eating out and choosing to buy the grocery store and create a meal at home and they’re looking to replicate that restaurant experience – and so ‘Coles Finest’ products are really helping them to do that.”
This week, I spoke to Jaid Hulsbosch, whose design and branding agency were behind the Coles Finest refresh. He echoed Weckert’s comments about shoppers aiming to replicate restaurant conditions without the nice-doily tax.
“Consumers are more savvy,” he reasons. “You know, they understand the value that own-brand products bring. They’re looking for value solutions. The cost of living means they’re looking for restaurant quality out-of-home experiences, in home, and affordable. And that’s where this product delivers – and that’s why it’s getting the sales increases that it’s getting.”
Hulsbosch demurs when I suggest his rebranding is responsible for the sales spike, saying “We have evolved, not revolutionised that brand” and pointing out its place as “Australia’s largest premium own brand range” well before his agency became involved some five years ago.
“That was a key part of the rebrand,” he said of maintaining that brand recognition. “Really hero-ing the products is what it is that we set out to do.
“Because, you know, at the end of the day, we are expressing the anticipation and the joy of these fabulous world class ingredients – and really bringing to life the indulgent eating experiences that you get from these great products.
“The product, it’s world class. And if it’s not, then the customers will instantly recognise that and not come back.”
We’ve come a long way from the days of No Frills cornflakes and unidentifiable Black and Gold pies.
While the cost-of-living crisis has clearly helped the 20% rise in the Coles Finest range – the rise of artisan-style supermarket stables mirrors another rising trend: namely, what the kids are calling ‘dupes’, bargain-priced knock-off products (duplicates) that deliver the exact same results for a fraction of the price. Sorry if that last sentence sounded like an infomercial.
While knock-off Nikes and fake Gucci bags have been around since Jesus first opened a stall at Paddy’s Markets (don’t fact check this too heavily), the rise of online retail and – more crucially – online influencers has seen savvy shoppers hunting for cost-price versions of everything from dresses worn on Euphoria, to face creams worn by influencers to lip-liners sold by Kardashians. The turnaround time between a product catching fire and the internet unearthing its trashier twin for cents on the dollar has become minuscule, and there are online stores that basically replicate other, more expensive online stores.
The dark side of this trend emerged back in 2018, when smaller fashion labels started complaining their designs were being routinely ripped off wholesale by fast fashion bandits like H&M or Zara, but the online tide seems to have turned towards these canny companies offering the product without the pricey branding and name recognition – which is what we are actually paying for, of course.
Blind taste-tests for wines and chocolate biscuits alike have dominated A Current Affair style shows for years now – “and you’ll be surprised at the results” – but never has the lust for bargains taken over the popular imagination as fiercely as it has now.
Case in point: A fair whack of the ‘lifestyle’ content on news.com.au comes directly from either TikTok trends or Facebook Groups, which makes it a pretty good cross-section of what catches fire on those particular platforms.
Look what happens when you search ‘dupe’ on the site.
That’s just the first five results from hundreds. To quote the 1994 song, ‘Doop’, by Dutch Eurodance group Doop: “Dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe-dupe.”
When Naomi Klein’s No Logo was released at the end of the last millennium, it starkly reflected the nadir of western consumer culture, bemoaning the elevation of brand names above actual products, and arguing that multinational companies focused more on the proliferation of their brand name – she targeted Pepsi, Nike, McDonald’s, the usual suspects – than on the quality and manufacturing of its products, to the detriment of the entire world. It’s not a beach read.
A quarter-century later, however, we may finally be seeing the unwinding of our brand reliance and the conflation of a cool brand with a cool lifestyle. The reverse is now true: people will actively avoid brand names if they can get a product of the same quality without the brand name tax.
Not only that, they will go online and boast about these bargains. They will join Facebook groups sharing advice on how to beat the brand-name system. Hell, I’m sure if I scroll far enough on TikTok/news.com.au, I’ll see a vertical video of my aunty touting these amazing new Fruity Rings and explaining how you can’t even tell the difference – and with the rising cost of living leaving a bad taste in our mouths, I’m sure she’d finally be right.
Enjoy your weekend.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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