I don’t have a link for this… I was driving through our beautiful Amish country to get out of the house today when I heard a story on the radio about “Stealth Brands”. Two examples given were Starbucks trying to open up shops without any of their branding that looked like “local independent businesses”. Coors beer was marketing a brand of beer under another name to portray that brand as something from a regional microbrewery.
Of course it’s not good news when these corporate giants open up shop in competition with you… but the stealth branding indicates people are tired to some degree of big corporate outfits. They’d rather support the business with local flavor as long as the mix of quality, pricing, and service are present. Realizing that, the big boys use their corporate clout to pretend to be a smaller business.
I hope this means that we are moving back to local/regional brands, culture and identity. Perhaps it’s a good sign for your local business.
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