Branding, Soap, & The Shampoo Isle

Reading Anne McClintock’s “Soft-Soaping Empire” caused me to think about how far the branding of soap has come since Pears created his empire. In my Advertising and Society class, we often talk about brands and how we chose certain ones only because we identify with that particular brand. Brands play into our insecurities, just as manufacturers of soap did before it was popular. When we learned about this in my advertising class, I wrote about the most intimidating encounter with brands that I can think of: the shampoo isle in any store. Walking down that isle, it’s easy to feel like so many brand names and logos are calling out to you, but you have no idea which one to choose. Each different brand seems to promise pleasure, happiness, better health, etc. The different bottles and logos allow customers to identify them and distinguish them amongst each other, but there are so many options that I find the shampoo isle frightening.

Treseme, Revlon, Head & Shoulders, Dove, Aussie, Herbal Essence, Garnier Fructis, Redken, Paul Mitchell, Pantene Pro V, L’Oreal, John Frieda, Suave, Nexxus: all in different colorful bottles, shapes, and sizes, protecting against dryness, split ends, color damage, frizziness, and oil. The question is, how do people chose? Shopping in this isle is a prime example of the power of brands. Every single product essentially only washes and cleans hair, but each product promises this in a different way, on a different platform.

What’s interesting to me is that very rarely (I’d argue hardly ever) does a person pick up the bottle and turn it around to look at the different chemical ingredients on the back to compare different products. Instead, the customer looks at the logo on the front, recognizes the product, or reads the first few bold words on the front of what the product promises. Standing in the shampoo isle glancing at the logos, I often recall a catchy slogan (Treseme, Treseme, Oh la la!), remember a celebrity who endorsed the product (Eva Longoria’s flowing, shiny hair after using L’Oreal), or recall what the shampoo claimed to do in the commercials.

Once a customer is loyal to a certain brand and have one they like, the shampoo isle is less intimidating, because the person can simply identify that product’s logo, shape, and color, and pick it out. Still, the possibilities in that isle always seem to make me question my decision. What makes a person a Revlon user or a Suave user is definitely not the chemicals in the bottle. Instead, the customer is buying into the brand.

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