[HN Gopher] Spacing the Cans
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       Spacing the Cans
        
       Author : hams-andwich
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2024-03-30 19:47 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (robhorning.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (robhorning.substack.com)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | > _It 's been brought to my attention that you're not paying
       | attention to the way you space the cans._ --Mr. Humphries
       | 
       | > _The generic must move amongst the brands as a fish swims in
       | the sea_ --not Mao Ze Dong
        
       | rdtsc wrote:
       | Aldi isn't the first to do it, an extreme version of it was in
       | the 80's or so: https://gbnfgroceries.blogspot.com/2014/01/from-
       | misc-foods-a...
       | 
       | Just plain white boxes with black font indicating what's inside
       | "beer", "ice cream", "rice", etc.
        
         | gorlilla wrote:
         | We had a store called Finast. Their store brand just said
         | Finast and what was in the box, but the boxes were yellow
         | instead or white.
        
         | Brian_K_White wrote:
         | The article is explicitly not about that.
         | 
         | The whole stated point of the article is that these things are
         | neither real brands nor the absense of a brand.
        
         | hagbard_c wrote:
         | There was a Dutch version of this as well with the 'brand' name
         | _Van een goede fabriek_ ( 'From a good factory') which I used
         | quite a bit while at university. It was packaged in white
         | boxes/bags or jars/cans with white labels with the product type
         | - 'macaroni', 'pindakaas' (peanut butter), 'aardbeienjam'
         | (strawberry jam), 'tarwebloem' (wheat flour) - in brown letters
         | on a yellow rectangle with a brown edge around it. It was very
         | intentionally made to look 'cheap' and it mostly was, money-
         | wise. The products were mostly OK, good enough quality for the
         | non-too-discerning student I was. Were I to live in the
         | Netherlands still and were those products still available I'd
         | still buy some of them. Others - like peanut butter and jam - I
         | tend to make myself now so there is no longer any need to buy
         | such.
        
       | jen729w wrote:
       | Is it this complex? Or is it just that Aldi realised that middle-
       | class people don't want the store 'discount' label on their
       | shelves as it makes them look poor?
       | 
       | Some bland 'brand' isn't noticeable. And they're all different,
       | so you don't pattern-match 'Aldi'.
       | 
       | Our eyes just pass over it. And so Aldi is acceptable in your
       | middle-class lifestyle even though it's the cheap one.
       | 
       | It's genius.
        
       | lxe wrote:
       | A bit of a sidebar: Soviet Union has its own interesting history
       | of product branding and brand culture which is somewhat touched
       | upon, at a micro-scale, in relation to internal store branding.
        
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