How Store Brands are Constantly Evolving and Ever Changing

Private labels are a common strategy retailers use to keep profits in house, but fortunately for everyone, house brands are a lot less boring these days. In 1986, about a decade removed from his icon-setting days as lead singer of the Sex Pistols, British punk architect John Lydon released an album with his follow-up band, Public Image, Ltd., that had an extremely high-concept name. In fact, it didn’t technically have a name at all.

If you bought the record on vinyl, it was called Album; if you bought it on CD, it was called Compact Disc. And so on. It was actually a parody of generic branding, mimicking the approach of a U.S. chain, Ralphs, at a time when the film Repo Man had drawn attention to how plain store branding had become. We’re assuming that if Lydon had figured out a way to record an album on a box of baking soda, he would have called the album Baking Soda. (That said, he had already done this overly obvious naming joke better earlier in his career with the release of PiL’s landmark second album, Metal Box, and, oh, the band’s name.)

Today, we’re gonna talk about private labels, retail’s gift to conformity. Sometimes, the song remains the same.

Check out how private labels have evolved and are still changing!