Are consumer brands dead? Of course not!

On February 25, 2018 at her Speechwriter-Ghostwriter blog Jane Genova pontificated about Consumer brands – end of that era (beginning in 1930s at P&G). She began by quoting from a 2017 book by Scott Galloway 2017 that had claimed:

“Google signaled the end of the brand era as consumers, armed with search, no longer need to defer to the brand…”

But 12 days earlier she had posted about Doritos and Cheetos that Orange is new cool at PepsiCo. Quarterly sales from their snack business let them top Wall Street forecasts even though sugary drinks had declined. Those brands clearly were alive and well. And in 2016 there was a book by Mark Schatzker titled The Dorito Effect: the surprising new truth about food and flavor.

On February 27, 2018 Jane had blogged about Alexa et al. – voice tech eliminating traditional brands, consumer choice. She again referred to Scott Galloway who said when he needed to buy AAA batteries the Alexa app for an Amazon Echo just referred him to the AmazonBasics brand. 

But that reminded me about how I last bought batteries a month ago. The 9V alkaline backup battery in one of the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors had begun warning me at 2:00 AM by repeating the annoying voice message phrase “low battery”. That kept me from nodding off. I got a ladder from the garage and replaced it. But I knew that batteries in all the other detectors also would need replacement very soon, and I didn’t have enough on hand to do them all. So later that morning I went to a nearby shopping center with a Lowes and a Walmart and bought a package of four Rayovac ones (the cheapest national brand).

Would I ever buy batteries from Amazon? Probably not. I don’t even have an Amazon Echo. On December 10, 2017 I blogged about Use the right tools (visual aids) to give a great speech. In that post I described how I usually carry around a pocket-sized Nikon Coolpix L110 camera which uses 4 AA batteries. I keep a spare set in the console of my car. Every year or two I stop at Costco for a giant package of 48 Kirkland AA batteries.

I still consistently buy one ancient P&G brand – Ivory soap. When I run low, on my next grocery shopping trip to Winco, I grab another pack of three bars to use in the shower.