Branding: The Fake Factor

PauloGabriel — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:16:08 +0000

Making a little research, an interesting question showed up: When is a brand really strong? When we think about that, it's really huge the number of possible answer we might get. The most intriguing one? When people start faking it.

Yeah, you may think this is stupid, but if you only think about it for one moment, you'll realize that only solid brands are copied in industrial scale. Adidas, Puma, McDonald's, Panasonic are among the brands that are so famous that people will even get absurd copies of their products.

Fake brands clearly supply a basic demand for low cost items that the consumer can associate with less affordable, scarce premier brands. However, psychologists have looked far more deeply into this area of consumer behaviour and a wealth of research has been published. A very basic finding is that despite the low price factor, fake brands are regularly bought by relatively high income households in developed countries. - Sarah Boumphrey

But looking through another perspective, what if a percentage of these people buy fake products as a kind of protest? It's pretty clever, but if a brand is expensive and represents a bad thing to a group of people, they just might buy it so that other people see they won't spend 100 bucks for a shirt, a purse, a shoe or whatever.

Once fake brands were sold from suitcases on high streets and back-street market stalls. Then trend-setter, gap-year teens and early twenty-somethings began returning home wearing their knock-off brands with pride. Now they are more pervasive, and are attracting buyers from across the consumer wealth spectrum. Are fake brands becoming chic and fun, and are luxury brands in danger of being undermined by a consumer trend towards ironic purchasing? - Sarah Boumphrey

And of course, here are some examples of what we get to see in the streets. Again, we'd love you to tell us what you think is the sign that a brand is really strong and solid. Cheers! ;)

About the author

Hello, everyone! I'm Paulo Gabriel, designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil, born in 1984. I have worked as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobby for me since 1999. Here in Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you... and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! For more cool stuff, you may also follow me on Twitter.

Inspiration: PANOS 2013 Fake Streetsigns

aloa — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:51:48 +0000

I love every art that has to do with street-art. Especially when you change signs. I see a lot of funny arts here in my hometown, but they're not as good as these ones from the project PANOS 2013

a collaborative project that takes the work of artists from around the world, in the form of fake road signs, and turns the streets of Lyon, France into an enormous gallery without walls.

The round red and white signs look enough like real European traffic signs that you might take them for granted, but weird enough if you notice them to make you stop and think.

This project has a delightful sense of humor, lots playful absurdity and a wonderful scale.

Panos 2013 is the second edition of this project. You can have a look at the first edition in the Panos 2004 section.

More pictures and other projects on Bopano.com

About the author

Aloa is the moniker of the german/greek graphic designer/filmmaker & musician Alexis Papageorgiou. Im glad to share great artistic work with the readers on Abduzeedo. Contact me on aloa@abduzeedo.com or follow my Twitter and Facebook page

fake

Branding: The Fake Factor

Making a little research, an interesting question showed up: When is a brand really strong? When we think about that, it's really huge the number of possible answer we might get. The most intriguing one? When people start faking it.

About the author

Sponsored Links:

Inspiration: PANOS 2013 Fake Streetsigns

I love every art that has to do with street-art. Especially when you change signs. I see a lot of funny arts here in my hometown, but they're not as good as these ones from the project PANOS 2013

About the author

Sponsored Links: