no name: Simple Check

As one of the original private label brands, no name – made by grocery retailer Loblaw – had a proud heritage but was now facing intense competition and perceptions of low quality.

Market background and context

The original “anti-brand” brand
  • no name is a line of generic grocery and household products sold by Loblaw, Canada’s largest food retailer.
  • Launched in 1978, it is one of Canada’s original private label brands – and also the original “anti-brand”.
  • It had a loyal group of fans who appreciated its low prices and no-frills branding, with bold black text in lower-case Helvetica on a bright yellow background, accompanied by disarmingly blunt product descriptions.
Competition was rising
  • Research showed that 98% of Canadian grocery shoppers buy private-label products, with 40% of them saying these products influence where...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands