Consider Matching Brand Effects

When a customer purchases an item carrying a specific brand name, the customer becomes more likely to prefer the same brand name when going on to select an accompanying item. However, after selecting a few accompanying items with the same brand name, the shopper starts preferring other brands.
     Use this insight about decision making patterns to shape how you build the sale.
     Researchers at University of Minnesota began by noting how the woman buying corn chips often starts looking for the salsa bottle and how the man eyeing the high-definition TV might be reviewing the DVD player/recorders using his peripheral vision. The researchers then went on to find that when the chips and salsa or the HDTV and DVD machine carry the same brand name, the man and woman will enjoy the items more than when the items carry different brands.
     Why is this? Evidence from the four studies showed that it was because matching brand labels suggest to shoppers that the two products were specifically designed and tested to work well together. This may, in reality, be the case. If so, enhance the effect when selling by pointing out specific ways in which the combination is better than the sum of the two parts. The corn chips are flavored delicately so as not to interfere with the zing of the salsa, and the chips don’t wilt when this brand of salsa is slathered on. The plugs on the HDTV and DVD player/recorder are coded to make hookup foolproof, and when you turn on the DVD player, the HDTV carrying the same brand name goes on automatically.
     In other instances, the matching brand name carries no advantage. Your private label brand of one member of the pair might do as well. Recognize that in this instance, the bias toward the match will require you to pump up the persuasion. What does the house brand offer that the national name brand does not? A better price?
     But house brands might bring another problem if they carry the same name and package design across product categories. Research findings from Wake Forest University and University of North Carolina–Greensboro suggest that when packaging is similar across items, the shopper senses a loss of control. The consequence might be that shoppers seek variety beyond the similarly branded items.
     Erase the repetition with distinctive designs and color schemes on signage for different product categories.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Build House Brand Equity with Distinction