[Getting Your Brand Into Costume ]

With this being Halloween season, our thoughts turn to one of our favorite pastimes: costume parties. In particular, we’re fascinated by the way a costume seems to change the person inside it. Your shy friend dons a blue wig and becomes the life of the party. The office chatterbox becomes an eerily silent specter. A costume allows you to step outside your usual role and become someone else... and gives the rest of the world permission to take the new you at face value.

A lot of organizations could learn the value of getting into costume. Often, a bold new product or service needs a bold new look...especially if the market’s perception of your brand is holding you back.

Hershey’s, for instance, has been promoting a new premium line of chocolates, Cacao Reserve, with stylish design and heavy advertising. But, according to Advertising Age, this spring the chocolatier found itself forced to discount the $2.50 bars. The reason is stamped right on the package: “Cacao Reserve by Hershey’s.”

To Hershey’s executives, their name probably symbolizes quality, tradition, and history. But to the marketplace it symbolizes Bars, Kisses, and Kit Kats: reliable, middle-of-the-road sweets. Why pay more for Hershey, even if it is gourmet, the consumer thinks, when I could be buying Godiva, Ghirardelli, or Lindt?

Cacao Reserve might well taste better than its competitors, but most consumers will never find that out. To be successful, Hershey’s should have put on its Cacao Reserve costume and never let the mask slip. Rather than being a badge of pride, “by Hershey’s” is a scarlet letter to premium chocolate buyers.

On the flip side, it’s typically much easier for a brand to explore down-market...and the new offshoot sometimes finds it’s worth it to dress up in the parent brand’s clothing. Hence the success of Filene’s Basement, Nordstrom Rack, and outlet malls. Whether one finds new products, less commercially successful lines, or even remaindered clothing, it all feels like a steal – so what if there’s a stitch out of place? Almost inevitably, the halo of the parent brand’s success clings to the new line: I may be at the Rack, the consumer thinks, but I’m still in a Nordstrom.

Some firms dress up their products to capitalize on other brands’ reputations. This is especially rampant in grocery store cereal and soda aisles. Notice, for instance, how huddled right next to Froot Loops’ Toucan Sam is a generic knock-off also pitched by a bird character. Not confident enough that their low prices can lure customers away from Kellogg’s, many store brands resort to near-piracy of Kellogg’s imagery and packaging as well.

Safeway is the rare company that seems to know how to dress up and down. Unlike most grocery store brands, their Safeway Select line does not try to ape the look and feel of name brands. Instead, with lush photography and elegant design, Safeway Select has positioned itself as a first among storebrands – not Coca-Cola or Kellogg’s, but a cut above its other grocery competitors. More recently, it has opened a line of upscale quick-service restaurants called Citrine New World Bistro. Aimed at those who snack at Panera and Nordstrom, the chain’s connection to Safeway is being kept almost completely hush-hush–awise strategy for a brand trying to woo diners who wouldn’t food-shop anywhere but Wegmans.

Picking the right outfit is tricky, but Safeway knows when to parade in all its finery, and when to go incognito. Hershey’s–and scores of other firms – would do well to take note.