Well that worked then...

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Yv

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I just read this article about how swapping to plain packaging for cigarettes in Australia has had precious little impact on the number of people smoking and in fact has probably caused more problems than it has solved. Counterfeiters are having a beano and smokers are swapping to cheaper brands, reducing not only tobacco companies revenue, but exchequer incomes too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/hea...ants-is-to-hear-tobacco-companies-squeal.html

So, serious question, how much does actual branding affect what you buy as a consumer of anything? Whether it's your favourite smoke, your favourite shampoo, your preferred brand of baked beans - is the 'brand' of major importance, or do the price and the actual product play a major part too? How much are we influenced by glamorous advertising? if everything came in plain packaging, would the cost of your weekly shop drop dramatically?


Just to be clear, I haven't started this thread to discuss smoking per se, that is merely the lead in, so if if all you want to do is tell us how disgusting it is as a habit, then perhaps click away, it is more about how and why we buy what we do, what are our mental processes when purchasing anything.
 
When I used to smoke, the brand was pretty much whatever was cheapest and tasted least offensive! Ended up (IIRC) being B&H. When I started, branding was more important - certain brands were supposedly cooler than others and a well known brand that starts with M came in soft packs and were supposedly super cool (but tasted like the product of the creature on the front of the brand that sponsored an off road trophy [which also tasted like camel crap!])
 
It's difficult not to be influenced as we tend to walk around with 'lists' of things in our minds. The job of advertising is to get their products onto our mental lists, preferably at the top.

Incidentally, as you use cigarettes as an example, the best thing that happened to the tobacco companies was the banning of advertising, it saved them all huge sums of money!
 
Cartus said:
It's difficult not to be influenced as we tend to walk around with 'lists' of things in our minds. The job of advertising is to get their products onto our mental lists, preferably at the top.

Incidentally, as you use cigarettes as an example, the best thing that happened to the tobacco companies was the banning of advertising, it saved them all huge sums of money!
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Indeed, and the same could be said in the future for alcohol and other products considered not good for us and are being considered under advertising laws, but will it reduce the amount of it we buy and consume?
 
I am not usually brand loyal for anything to be honest with the exception of toilet paper.....needs to be at least 3 ply with added aloe Vera
 
Does it work?
The cigarette manufacturers are opposing the change ... it works :)
 
Does it work?
Gramps as a smoker, no it wont make the slightest difference. The box is utterly irrelevant.
When I started would it have worked? No, the box was utterly irrelevant.

The Cigarette manufacturers are opposing the change, so getting in effect free advertising, because everyone's talking about it. So, no thats not working either.
 
@Yv actually that does raise some very interesting points
about counterfeit brands of Cigarettes, doesn't it?

I bet that plain packaging of anything will not reduce the cost,
or deter other smokers (as was the plan I believe) from starting.

I tend to smoke the same brand, but will also try other cheaper brands
when the price of mine goes up.

Something's I will not buy cheap or "own brands"
Baked beans are one, has to be Heinz,
Loo roll as previously mentioned has to be good quality too.
but I'm not worried whether that's Andrex or Velvet (etc.)
And many more besides.
 
Why not offer the same product in either plain or branded packaging but with a 20% premium on the branded product and see what difference it makes?
 
gramps said:
Does it work?
The cigarette manufacturers are opposing the change ... it works :)
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But they are opposing it because it might have a significant effect on profits, so if that is the aim, then yes, it has worked. However, the battle cry with the campaign to introduce plain packets is to reduce the number of people smoking and the number of young people taking up the habit - surely one would assume the more important effect given the backing from governments and health bodies such a scheme has? If the Australian results are anything to go by, then quite plainly that side of it has failed dismally - as any smoker could have told you it would do.

To put it another way, I prefer Tesco bake beans, Chris above said he has to have Heinz - if it came to light that baked beans have been responsible for the increase in severe IBS cases and ergo increased pressure on the NHS treating it, would selling all baked beans in plain tins make us stop eating them, or would we still buy them anyway because we love them and not everyone that eats baked beans gets IBS, but possibly we might buy the cheaper ones and Heinz would kick up a stink about lost revenue. Would there be an increased amount of fake baked beans containing way too much salt and sugar than is good for us and are a tonne of sauce with only a few beans, because we simply won't be able to tell the difference?

This is what I am asking, how much does 'brand' over content/product affect what we buy and would our habits change if fancy advertising and glossy packaging were no longer the norm? It isn't going to happen, well, probably not in my lifetime and not across a whole range of goods - cigs, alcohol, possibly high sugar/fat foods, maybe that will happen, but generally, it isn't. So I am just asking out of curiosity rather than the likelihood of any real life scenario.
 
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As an ex smoker (you've probably heard we're the worst), I can't see what sense this makes.
Banning the advertising - good
Banning sports sponsorship - questionable
Messages on packaging - daft but I can see it might make a difference
Plain packaging - ridiculous.

On a related note, the idea that we have to ban people from smoking in cars where children are? :rage:
Who'd be selfish enough to poison a child?
 
Phil V said:
On a related note, the idea that we have to ban people from smoking in cars where children are? :rage:
Who'd be selfish enough to poison a child?
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Plenty....on a daily basis.
 
As a retailer of cigarettes I can tell you price is king to the locals, but the second home owners MUST have Marlboro Gold Original (known to them still as Marlboro lights from the days when you could call them light, and not the actual light ones which are silver, and were for a short and very confusing time called Marlboro Gold Silver) or if they're really trendy it'll be one of the 'Fresh taste' type ones with a menthol switch . Rolling Tobacco has become a lot more popular recently, and the one trick every brand almost has cottoned onto recently is making a reduction in pack size in order to give a lower price point. You've also got many of the bigger more expensive brands doing a low cost line which they all seem to have adopted the name 'Blue' for (and un surprisingly they are in blue packs, Lambert being the most annoying having released normal and smooth varieties in almost identical shades of blue).
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
(and un surprisingly they are in blue packs, Lambert being the most annoying having released normal and smooth varieties in almost identical shades of blue).
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And if they all switch to plain packets,
that's gonna make you life even harder for quite awhile I suspect,
serious question, what will you do, store / display them in alphabetical order or something like that?
 
I have no idea how we'll do it, alphabetically makes most sense. At present the rep from our supplier comes round and merchandises it according to their research/statistics/who's bribed them this month and it's PITA finding stuff, especially the really awful brand stuff that rarely sells. Personally I can't wait for them to get the cupboard doors up on the unit (at present we can still display), the amount we sell the doors will be almost permanently open anyway so will be a complete waste of time!
 
My view as an ex smoker is that plain packaging will make very little difference. It will just make them all look like economy brands like Sainsbury's Basics. I think the more expensive brands may lose a few sales and the cheaper ones may pick up some sales as people will not be looking at labels so much.

At the end of the day, if two cameras from different manufacturers looked exactly the same, came in the same boxes and took almost identical images but one was £20 cheaper, which would you go for?

Smokers will not really care about packaging - if you need a fag, you need a fag - the box just goes in the bin.
 
Not smoking related but a few years back, Dad took up a management position at Asda.

Part of the training was as you would expect about branding and packaging and their research showed that in blind taste tests, their own foods were more or less rated the same as M&S/Waitrose but when you did the tests and the testers were able to see the packaging, the same Asda foods compared very poorly.

I must admit I've always been a bit of a Coke snob and would only have Coke Zero as well as only having "proper" weetabix. Well a few months back Asda didn't have any proper weetabix so I brought their own brand and it tasted exactly the same.

We're trying to save a bit of money since Evie was born and last week I bought Asda's version of Coke Zero...... again I have to say whilst not quite the same as proper coke zero, it actually tastes fine, even though the label does look cheap & tacky
 
Don't smoke or drink so no comment on those, but as far as Food goes, I don't eat tinned or processed foods so advertising or branding has any interest to me. But if I did, I'd just look at nutritional values on labels and pick the ones that suit me.
 
Russ77 said:
We're trying to save a bit of money since Evie was born and last week I bought Asda's version of Coke Zero...... again I have to say whilst not quite the same as proper coke zero, it actually tastes fine, even though the label does look cheap & tacky
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Same.....but if you can, try Morrisons cola. Hands down beats ASDA.
 
Russ77 said:
Cheers for that, I'll give it a try! Although is it only 42p per bottle? lol
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I know.
Morrisons is 2 bottles for 90p...IMO well worth the additional 3p per bottle :-)
 
I gave up smoking about 5 years ago, and I think, with the exception of when I first started (when Embassy no1 were 'cool'), the packaging never played a part in the brand I chose. I liked what I liked, and that was that. Plain packaging wont help reduce the number of people smoking, just as pictures of diseased lungs etc on packaging didnt particularly make me want to stop *

*That sounds ridiculous now as an ex smoker :facepalm:

With regards to food, pretty much the same attitude really. I know the things I like, and will generally go for those unless there happens to be a special on a brand I hadnt tried previously. There are a couple of things I buy, where I DO have to have the same brand though. I always buy Heinz baked beans, and always buy the round PG Tips tea bags. For everything else...bread is bread, pasta is pasta, rice is rice, apples are apples, brocolli is brocolli etc etc etc.
 
Forgot to mention, I was told by a customer last year that her local shop wasn't allowed to sell Silk Cut Slims because the box was too fancy and was encouraging children to smoke somehow. The box was Purple with some kind of glitter and metallic pattern effect. being half the size of a regular pack it hardly stood out!
 
Hmmm never smoked, but cannot help but think that now, cigarettes have to be kept under counter / behind doors, the perceived "tabooness" / "illicetness" of it makes it more appealing to younger people who may be easily persuaded.
 
The packaging was never part of the decision making process. The taste of the cigarette and nicotine content mattered more...

To start - no attraction to the packaging of the box of cigarettes for me, it was the packaging of my italian girlfriend that helped me persevere to the extend I started smoking myself...
To continue - It is purely the flavour. I was mainly a gauloises smoker, later on switched to the lights...And as it was hard to get them in the UK I preferred the blend of the Marlboro Lights...Packaging had nothing to do with it, neither has costs....It is all about the flavour....
 
If it says Kellogg's on the box then it's Kellogg's in the box.

I tend to buy brands, Cadburys, Terry's chocolate orange, Andrex, Finnish for the dishwasher. Tropicana for my juice. The branding makes it easy to find and pick up in the store without getting confused into buying something else.

Some own brand stuff in the supermarket is great however. When I smoked I smoked Mayfair. I like to see what I'm buying so think it's a bad move
 
Lynton said:
Hmmm never smoked, but cannot help but think that now, cigarettes have to be kept under counter / behind doors, the perceived "tabooness" / "illicetness" of it makes it more appealing to younger people who may be easily persuaded.
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I can think of a product that a) is smoked, b) has no 'branding' or official packaging whatsoever, c) is at very best, (or worst!) kept 'under the counter' and not on display and d) seemingly steadily increased in popularity over the past twenty years!
 
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Cartus said:
I can think of a product a) is smoked, b) has no 'branding' or official packaging whatsoever, c) is at very best, (or worst!) kept 'under the counter' and not on display and d) seemingly steadily increased in popularity over the past twenty years!
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:)
 
ST4 said:
If it says Kellogg's on the box then it's Kellogg's in the box.

I tend to buy brands, Cadburys, Terry's chocolate orange, Andrex, Finnish for the dishwasher. Tropicana for my juice. The branding makes it easy to find and pick up in the store without getting confused into buying something else.

Some own brand stuff in the supermarket is great however. When I smoked I smoked Mayfair. I like to see what I'm buying so think it's a bad move
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I know what you mean about branding making it easy to grab what you want, but then when you look at the rise in sales at stores like Aldi, where there are few known brands, there is a lean towards trying cheaper alternatives and like you say, some of them are very good. As I said earlier, I much prefer tesco baked beans over Heinz [not the really cheap value ones, but the regular tesco branded ones] as they are far less rich and sickly.

As to smoking, Lynton does have a point, that teens generally will go out of their way to do something adults are telling them they shouldn't and they sure as hell won't care what the packet looks like. I know when I was in my 20's it was considered far cooler to be seen with Marlboros than anything else, but the teens I knew that smoked were just happy with whatever they could afford or nick. So how such non branding will affect habits is open to conjecture. As the two articles linked in this thread show, it depends on how you read the statistics where this already happens, given each are contradictory of the other.

I am wondering whether I should have started this thread at all of course, because I ended up having a weird dream friday night, in a large supermarket where every single packet/tin just had a white label, no writing at all to even tell you its contents and I was desperately looking for mushroom soup. That in itself being odd as I don't eat soup :lol: :runaway:
 
I can think of a product that a) is smoked, b) has no 'branding' or official packaging whatsoever, c) is at very best, (or worst!) kept 'under the counter' and not on display and d) seemingly steadily increased in popularity over the past twenty years!
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You beat me to that one!

It's a very good point though, and one that'll be ignored, along with the fact that most smokers don't care what packet they come in.

I think it'll just make money for anyone who wants to sell branded tobacco or cigarette tins.
 
ST4 said:
Aldi/Lidl sell brands too, just not ones from here. People try them and realise they aren't bad. I'm more a Waitrose person myself. But I am a proper snob, I can admit that :)
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:LOL: We have a Waitrose and an M&S right at the top of our road, so both get used for bits and pieces, so can't really knock for that. Many years ago I used to shop at Netto, same kind of thing, brands, just not ones that were known here but the food was good quality and good value, especially as money was very tight. The biggest problem I had was my eldest daughter got the mickey taken out of her at school if she had anything 'netto' branded in the her lunchbox, as they did do their own brand stuff too. Wonder if that still happens now?
 
One thing I've noticed with the Aldi lookalike brands is that it isn't the same quality, yet same packaging, albeit different name. I've got no issue with their original foreign brands but really notice a difference with some of the lookalike stuff.
 
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If I was a smoker I would simply save up the boxes, and post ban transfer from the new pack to the old!

Pointless law... if people want to smoke, let them. If everyone suddenly gave up that would leave a massive hole in our finances = tax increase. Sure, smokers do cost the NHS but many of us will die of something that is a cost! Would love to see research on this, if a smoker dies of lung cancer at 65 what is the public cost, as opposed to someone living to 85/90 and getting more pension, carers, prescriptions etc... Am sure that smokers save us money!

Think the in car ban is pretty pointless, can't see it being enforced effectively, and what about smoking in the home where kids spend much of their life?
 
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Good point. It probably will also mean that there will be a nice market for silver and gold and all sorts of cigarette boxes. Just like the olden days.
 
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hmm interesting thing about Netto - don't have them in Norwichshire (that I am aware of) however as expected, Aldi and Lidl in the more "deprived" areas of the city and Waitrose in the leafy suburbs. I used to think Waitrose was v expensive, and yes it still is for some things, but also quite competitive for other staple things such as cereal etc.... however I digress.

What did shock me the other day down in the local co-op was the cupboard of doom and death (ciggy cupboard) was open and best part of £9.50 for 20 Marlboro's.... ouch!
 
chris954 said:
It says Cadbury's on a cream egg but apparently its not anymore.
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Yes it is Cadbury...it's just not dairy milk chocolate.
Dairy milk isn't the only chocolate they make. :p
 
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