Name Brand Products and Store Brand Products

With the difficult economic times experienced in the recent times, people require to be frugal spenders with their money. As a result, many people are turning to lower priced products in order to make their money go an extra mile. The term ‘brand’ refers to a distinct as a plan, expression, given name, signs or any other facial appearance that identifies what one is selling either commodities or services to differentiate from what other sellers are selling. The officially permitted name for a brand is called trademark. It is used to identify what a certain company is producing or selling in the market. A brand can be of any form; it can be a slogan of something, sign, different colors for a certain product, symbol of something, or a certain name which will differentiate that product from others in the market

Store brand products are generally cheaper compared to the name brands of the same version of a product. Store brands are usually products sold by a retailer in a specific chain of stores. The retailer is responsible for the manufacturing, the packaging and the marketing of the goods. They are cheaper because the retailer can optimize the production to reduce the advertising costs in order to suit the consumer demand. Store brands have gained a lot of popularity over the years.

Cereals can be extremely expensive especially since kids consume a lot of cereals for breakfast. The name brand cereals are more expensive as compared to the store brand cereals. A good example of a name brand cereal product is Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, while the store brand version of the cereal product is Malt-O-Meal Frosted Flakes. There are several similarities and differences that exist between the store brand and the name brand version of cereals, though several experiments that have been conducted tend to prove that most children can hardly tell the difference between the two products.

• Similarities

Both the store brand and the name brand cereals have to undergo consumer tests to prove that they are fit for human consumption, and that they are able to suit the consumers’ needs. This means that even though the store brands are cheaper, it doesn’t mean that they are substantial since they also undergo high manufacturing standards. The two kinds of cereals are also known to taste the same, to the extent that some people can hardly tell the difference between the two products, and they are also both healthy products.

• Differences

The first major difference that exists in the cereal products is the price. The store brand cereals are cheaper than the name brand version of the products. This is because store brands do not carry heavy costs in the essence of advertising, product development and promotion. The packaging of the store brands and that of the name brand is different and so the consumer can tell the difference in the two products.

Store brand cereals tend to get higher product placement in the store since they are cheaper than the brand names and they have attained a steady sales level. Earlier on the store brand were not favored by consumers but with the economy getting tougher and tougher, they gained a popularity amongst the consumers after they realized there was a great price difference in the two brands but when it came to the quality, they were more or less the same. In the recent times where the consumers are going for cheaper priced cereals in a bid to get value for their money, the brand name cereals are actually fighting hard to remain in the stores since people have discovered that the cheaper store brand cereals also meet the consumers’ expectation and some have even opted to pay better so as to receive placements in the stores.

The name brands are known to be of better quality than the store brand cereals. This may make some of the shoppers to be reluctant to picking up the store brands in the supermarket shelves since they are equipped with this knowledge and they are afraid that the store brands will not meet their specific expectation. This can be the case with those retail stores that manufacture their products and so they adjust the ingredients in the products and use cheaper ones or remove some of the ingredients and so this can be unappealing to the consumers who are very particular with detail. The store brand cereals are normally manufactured under the retailers own label but the name brand are labeled under the manufacturer’s name.

In conclusion, since the consumers in the market have gained more product knowledge when it comes to the cereals offered in the store, they are opting to go for the store brands. This is because they have learnt that the name brands usually charge higher prices for their products so that the manufacturers of these products can offset their advertising and marketing costs and they feel that they want alternatives since these store brands are cheaper and they still meet their expectations.

To meet these changes, some of the big manufacturers with name brand products have opted to make the two types of products since they have realized that with the increase in product knowledge the consumers are out there to get value for their money. So they produce the name brand products and also the store brands by giving the retailers their ingredients and letting them package them but with their own specifications with slight differences with the ingredients of the products though this should not compromise the quality of the product.